San Jose Business Journal might want to work on its reporting

Unfortunately, and in our opinion a case of poor journalism, the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal took Stanford's press release on our lawsuit with Stanford and ran it nearly verbatim, with cursory changes and no attempt to contact us for our side of the story.

Below is something we sent to the Business Journal with the documentation about their lax reporting, but we've not heard back from them:

Your article on our organization's litigation against Stanford appears to be a barely-retouched version of Stanford's press release.  One can easily compare here:

http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2010/02/08/daily82.html#comment

and here:

http://news.stanford.edu/pr/2010/pr-stanford-county-trails-021110.html

I will note that we were never contacted by your newspaper for a contrasting position.  If, however, you have no problems running press releases as articles, ours is here:

http://www.greenfoothills.org/blog/2010/02/sad-legal-result-on-stanford-trails.html

Please contact me with any questions, comments, or new or altered articles on this issue, preferably sooner rather than later.

Sincerely,

Brian Schmidt

Committee for Green Foothills 

Read more!

Sad legal result on Stanford Trails litigation, but the fight continues in San Mateo County

The California Supreme Court has ruled against CGF over a technical issue regarding the right time to file our lawsuit about Stanford's proposal to expand the Alpine Road sidewalk on top of San Francisquito Creek.  Unfortunately, we don't have a chance to even discuss in court the merits of our argument.  Fortunately, though, San Mateo County has listened both to us and to Stanford and concluded in 2007 that the proposal was environmentally harmful and dangerous.  Stanford will doubtless try to wave construction money at them to change their minds, but we'll be there still to fight that extremely bad idea.  CGF's press release is below.

-Brian

Committee for Green Foothills

NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 11, 2010                               

PRESS CONTACTS: Brian Schmidt, Legislative Advocate, 650.968.7243w, 415.994.7403c, brian@greenfoothills.org

Supreme Court Decision on Stanford Trail Issue  Turns Attention to San Mateo County's Opposition to Sidewalk Expansion

Decision overturns appellate court ruling on technical filing issue that ends litigation; San mateo County's opposition not affected by ruling

PALO ALTO, CA  --  The California Supreme Court announced today that contrary to an appellate court ruling, Committee for Green Foothills (CGF) relied on the wrong deadline for filing litigation over a controversial Stanford University proposal to expand an existing sidewalk in San Mateo County to fulfill Stanford's promise of a trail on its lands.  The decision ends the lawsuit without considering the merits of CGF's argument that excluding a trail from Santa Clara County had unexamined environmental impacts.  San Mateo County has already rejected the Alpine Road sidewalk expansion proposed by Stanford to substitute for a trail on Stanford lands in Santa Clara County.  The end of litigation means that San Mateo County's previous decision and any potential change of mind will ultimately decide the trail issue.  If San Mateo County continues to reject the sidewalk expansion, Stanford must provide an equivalent amount of money to Santa Clara County Parks Department to mitigate for impacts caused the massive new development permitted on campus since 2000.

"We haven't had time to review the Court opinion," said Brian Schmidt, Committee for Green Foothills' Legislative Advocate, "we just know the outcome.  We've seen the arguments on filing deadlines and we are disappointed in the Supreme Court’s decision, but it's important to remember that regarding the trail controversy, the decision is only about a technicality.  Cut your way through the technicalities, and the problem is that Stanford is trying to get out of fulfilling a promise it made in return for being allowed massive new development," said Schmidt.  "It promised two trails on its own land to make up for the cumulative impact that its new development would have on the broader community.  Expanding an existing sidewalk on a dangerously-busy street doesn't provide a recreational experience, and Stanford's proposal to build alongside and into the San Francisquito Creek would have significant environmental impacts, none of them reviewed in previous environmental documents.  We are very grateful that San Mateo County has stood up to Stanford, and we hope that continues."

The Court ruling concerned whether a 30-day or a 180-day deadline applied to the lawsuit filed against Stanford and Santa Clara County.  Committee for Green Foothills argued the 180-day deadline applies because the decision to exclude the trail from Santa Clara County was done without environmental review, which allows 180 days for a challenge.  Stanford and Santa Clara County argued that certain parts of the wording of the December 2005 decision and in one of the documents filed at the County Clerk's office show they relied upon previous environmental reviews, and a 30-day deadline was required.  CGF says that 30 days is wrong.  The trial court ruled against CGF, but the appellate court ruled in favor of the 180 day deadline.  With the Supreme Court overturning the appellate ruling, the case will be dismissed without considering the environmental issues.

Stanford and Santa Clara County argue that San Mateo County will have to review the environmental effects of Stanford's proposal prior to making a decision.  However, the decision that the trail could not go on Stanford land in Santa Clara County, as the trail was shown to go in Santa Clara County's own trail map, was made by Santa Clara County in December 2005 and environmental review should have been done at that time.

San Mateo County residents, County officials, and the County Board of Supervisors had sharply negative reactions to Stanford's proposal when brought to them after the December 2005 decision, and San Mateo County has already rejected Stanford's proposal.  San Mateo County's position will stop the sidewalk regardless of court litigation.  Stanford has until 2011 to change San Mateo's position, with a potential two-year extension into 2013 if Santa Clara County agrees to further delay.  If the Alpine Road sidewalk expansion does not happen, the money for the expansion reverts to the Santa Clara County Parks Department to spend on recreational improvements in the vicinity of Stanford, something that Supervisor Liz Kniss had advocated since 2005.

Another effect of the Supreme Court litigation will be on Stanford's decision in 2006 to stop constructing the other one of the two trails it had promised, the S1 Trail running near to Page Mill Road.  Committee for Green Foothills had not sued over the S1 Trail decision and said it did not oppose that trail's construction or alignment, but after CGF filed its lawsuit, Stanford halted construction on the S1 Trail and blamed CGF's lawsuit.  CGF responded that its suit only concerned the substitution of the Alpine Road sidewalk expansion for the other proposed trail on the north side of the Stanford Foothills.

The question now arises as to whether and when Stanford will construct the S1 Trail that it had promised.

The third aspect of the trails controversy concerns the Alpine Road sidewalk in the jurisdiction of Portola Valley.  The environmental damages and large expense associated with expanding the sidewalk elsewhere generally do not apply to the section in Portola Valley, but the decision to expand that portion of the sidewalk was an inseparable part of the decision to exclude the trail alignment from Santa Clara County that Committee for Green Foothills had litigated.  With the Supreme Court ruling ending the litigation, the decision on the Portola Valley proposal could proceed depending on Portola Valley's decision whether to accept Stanford's proposal.

"Regardless of what happened today, it is still possible to do something besides throwing away money on a destructive and useless expanded sidewalk," said Schmidt.  "San Mateo County called for a grant program instead of harming San Francisquito Creek and instead of taking out part of a hill as Stanford proposed.  That is what should happen, now, and given San Mateo County's control over the issue, we agree with previous statements that it is unconscionable for Stanford to continue delaying and refusing to provide for its side of a deal it received for massive development rights."

Background

“Stanford tried to get out of its obligation to build a trail crossing its land in return for substantial development rights,” said Brian Schmidt.  “Santa Clara County capitulated to Stanford’s intense lobbying, tossed the trail out of Santa Clara County and proposed instead to expand the existing sidewalk/trail along busy Alpine Road in San Mateo County. This decision to move the trail across the creek and out of Santa Clara County was done without the required environmental review.”

Stanford and Santa Clara County did not seek approval of San Mateo County before deciding to replace its trail with the sidewalk expansion. Residents strongly oppose the proposed 16-foot wide sidewalk because of safety concerns where the expanded sidewalk would cross many private driveways in the Stanford Weekend Acres area, environmental impacts to sensitive creek and riparian areas, the proposal’s need to armor creek banks to support the expanded sidewalk, and to cut into a steep hillside to move Alpine Road.   Inquiries about replacing the sidewalk with other trail options outside of Stanford lands have been rebuffed.

The lower court ruled in October that Committee for Green Foothills had only 30 days to file suit over the decision that Stanford and Santa Clara County made in December 2005.  The Committee filed suit in June 2006, under the belief that a 180-day deadline should have applied.  To date, the court has not reviewed the merits of the case.

Stanford required to provide two trails

The Santa Clara County 1995 Trails Master Plan identified two trails crossing on the northern and southern sides of Stanford lands, identified as the “C1” and the “S1” trails.  As a condition of Stanford University’s 2000 General Use Permit that allowed the University to build an additional 5 million square feet of housing and academic facilities, Stanford was required to come back to the County with a plan to move forward with ‘building, dedicating and maintaining’ these two trails on University lands by the end of 2001.  “During this 5 year period, Committee for Green Foothills and other community members proposed several alternative alignments and several compromise alignments, all of which were rejected outright by Stanford,” said Schmidt. 

In 2003, the County decided to split the planning of the two trails and moved forward with planning for the less-controversial “S1 Trail” first, and initiated an extensive review process to determine the S1 Trail alignment.

Stanford offered an alternative alignment for the S1 Trail that moved it away from Page Mill Road, but when the County indicated in the fall of 2005 that it would accept that offer, Stanford added another condition.  It offered to make the “S1 Trail” available immediately, but only if the County immediately decided to exclude the second trail, the “C1 Trail” from crossing Stanford lands in Santa Clara County.  Stanford proposed that instead of going forward with the C1 Trail within its lands, it would offer to pay San Mateo County and the Town of Portola Valley to expand an existing sidewalk along Alpine Road.  The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors voted to accept this proposal in December, 2005.  The County’s approval did not contain any environmental review of the C1 alignment, even though the environmental review for the S1 Trail had been extensive.

“Stanford’s offer for the S1 Trail was used to get the County to throw out better alignments proposed by the environmental community.  Later, Stanford said its S1 Trail offer was unavailable unless the County immediately excluded the C1 Trail, or unless another long delay ensued to hold up the S1 Trail until the C1 Trail had also been reviewed,” said Brian Schmidt, CGF’s Legislative Advocate.  “Even if San Mateo County eventually does review the proposal, that doesn’t release Santa Clara County from conducting its own review of its own decisions.”

Stanford and Santa Clara County also changed plans without environmental review by agreeing to take money instead of a trail if San Mateo County or Portola Valley rejected plans for an expanded sidewalk.  This decision to eliminate a potential Santa Clara County trail in return for money is another approval made by the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors without environmental review.  This agreement also leaves unclear what happens if Stanford money is spent by San Mateo County or Portola Valley to prepare environmental reviews but then did not go forward with the sidewalk expansion , then it is quite possible that no trail would get build nor would Stanford need to provide any money to build trails elsewhere .

“There’s a striking contrast between the S1 Trail decision with a full scale Environmental Impact Report, and the more-destructive decision on the Alpine Road sidewalk, which was made with no review at all,” said Schmidt.  “That was our basis of argument that the 180-day period in which to file suit should have applied.”

# # #

About the Committee for Green Foothills

Committee for Green Foothills is a regional grassroots organization working to establish and maintain land-use policies that protect the environment throughout San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties.  Committee for Green Foothills, established in 1962, is a Bay Area leader in the continuing effort to protect open space and the natural environment of our Peninsula.   For more information about the Committee for Green Foothills or about our work on this issue, visit www.GreenFoothills.org.

Read more!

Press Release: Supreme Court To Issue Opinion Tomorrow in Litigation Over Stanford Sidewalk Expansion

(CGF sent out this press release today.  -Brian)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 10, 2010                               

PRESS CONTACTS: Brian Schmidt, Legislative Advocate, 650.968.7243w, 415.994.7403c, brian@greenfoothills.org

Supreme Court To Issue Opinion Tomorrow in Litigation Over Stanford Sidewalk Expansion

California Supreme Court to announce whether it will dismiss lawsuit on technical issue or allow trial to proceed

PALO ALTO, CA  --  The California Supreme Court announced today that it will issue its opinion tomorrow over a technical issue involving deadlines for a lawsuit regarding a controversial Stanford University proposal to expand an existing sidewalk in San Mateo County to fulfill Stanford's promise of a trail on its lands.  The decision for this stage of the litigation will end the lawsuit if the Supreme Court overrules the appellate court finding that the Committee for Green Foothills (CGF) correctly relied on a longer deadline for filing its complaint.  If the court rules in favor of environmentalists, the case will proceed to trial; but regardless, San Mateo County has rejected Stanford's proposal as environmentally damaging and dangerous.

Either a 30-day or a 180-day deadline applied to the lawsuit filed against Stanford and Santa Clara County.  Committee for Green Foothills argues the 180-day deadline applies because the decision to exclude the trail from Santa Clara County was done without environmental review, which allows 180 days for a challenge.  Stanford and Santa Clara County argue that certain parts of the wording of the December 2005 decision and in one of the documents filed at the County Clerk's office show they relied upon previous environmental reviews, and a 30-day deadline was required.  CGF says that 30 days is wrong.  The trial court ruled against CGF, but the appellate court ruled in favor of the 180 day deadline.

"Cut your way through the technicalities, and the problem is that Stanford is trying to get out of fulfilling a promise it made in return for being allowed massive new development," said Brian Schmidt, Legislative Advocate for Committee for Green Foothills.  "It promised two trails on its own land to make up for the cumulative impact that its new development would have on the broader community.  Expanding an existing sidewalk on a dangerously-busy street doesn't provide a recreational experience, and Stanford's proposal to build alongside and into the San Francisquito Creek would have significant environmental impacts, none of them reviewed in previous environmental documents."

Stanford and Santa Clara County argue that San Mateo County will have to review the environmental effects of Stanford's proposal prior to making a decision.  However, the decision that the trail could not go on Stanford land in Santa Clara County, as the trail was shown to go in Santa Clara County's own trail map, was made by Santa Clara County in December 2005 and environmental review should have been done at that time.

San Mateo County residents, County officials, and the County Board of Supervisors had sharply negative reactions to Stanford's proposal when brought to them after the December 2005 decision, and San Mateo County has already rejected Stanford's proposal.  San Mateo County's position will stop the sidewalk regardless of court litigation.  Stanford has until 2011 to change San Mateo's position, with a potential two-year extension into 2013 if Santa Clara County agrees to further delay.  If the Alpine Road sidewalk expansion does not happen, the money for the expansion reverts to the Santa Clara County Parks Department to spend on recreational improvements in the vicinity of Stanford, something that Supervisor Liz Kniss had advocated since 2005.

Another effect of the Supreme Court litigation might be on Stanford's decision in 2006 to stop constructing the other one of the two trails it had promised, the S1 Trail running near to Page Mill Road.  Committee for Green Foothills had not sued over the S1 Trail decision and said it did not oppose that trail's construction or alignment, but after CGF filed its lawsuit, Stanford halted construction on the S1 Trail and blamed CGF's lawsuit.  CGF responded that its suit only concerned the substitution of the Alpine Road sidewalk expansion for the other proposed trail on the north side of the Stanford Foothills.

If the Supreme Court rules in favor of CGF, then the dispute over the S1 Trail continues.  If the Supreme Court says the litigation was filed too late, a question will arise as to whether and when Stanford will construct the S1 Trail that it had promised.

The third aspect of the trails controversy concerns the Alpine Road sidewalk in the jurisdiction of Portola Valley.  The environmental damages and large expense associated with expanding the sidewalk elsewhere generally do not apply to the section in Portola Valley, but the decision to expand that portion of the sidewalk was an inseparable part of the decision to exclude the trail alignment from Santa Clara County that Committee for Green Foothills had litigated.  If the Supreme Court upholds the appellate court decision, then it remains unclear whether the Portola Valley section can proceed.  If the Supreme Court rules against CGF, then Portola Valley work could proceed.

"Regardless of what happens tomorrow, it is still possible to do something besides throwing away money on a destructive and useless expanded sidewalk," said Schmidt.  "San Mateo County called for a grant program instead of harming San Francisquito Creek and instead of taking out part of a hill as Stanford proposed."

Background

“Stanford tried to get out of its obligation to build a trail crossing its land in return for substantial development rights,” said Brian Schmidt.  “Santa Clara County capitulated to Stanford’s intense lobbying, tossed the trail out of Santa Clara County and proposed instead to expand the existing sidewalk/trail along busy Alpine Road in San Mateo County. This decision to move the trail across the creek and out of Santa Clara County was done without the required environmental review.”

Stanford and Santa Clara County did not seek approval of San Mateo County before deciding to replace its trail with the sidewalk expansion. Residents strongly oppose the proposed 16-foot wide sidewalk because of safety concerns where the expanded sidewalk would cross many private driveways in the Stanford Weekend Acres area, environmental impacts to sensitive creek and riparian areas, the proposal’s need to armor creek banks to support the expanded sidewalk, and to cut into a steep hillside to move Alpine Road.   Inquiries about replacing the sidewalk with other trail options outside of Stanford lands have been rebuffed.

The lower court ruled in October that Committee for Green Foothills had only 30 days to file suit over the decision that Stanford and Santa Clara County made in December 2005.  The Committee filed suit in June 2006, under the belief that a 180-day deadline should have applied.  To date, the court has not reviewed the merits of the case.

Stanford required to provide two trails

The Santa Clara County 1995 Trails Master Plan identified two trails crossing on the northern and southern sides of Stanford lands, identified as the “C1” and the “S1” trails.  As a condition of Stanford University’s 2000 General Use Permit that allowed the University to build an additional 5 million square feet of housing and academic facilities, Stanford was required to come back to the County with a plan to move forward with ‘building, dedicating and maintaining’ these two trails on University lands by the end of 2001.  “During this 5 year period, Committee for Green Foothills and other community members proposed several alternative alignments and several compromise alignments, all of which were rejected outright by Stanford,” said Schmidt. 

In 2003, the County decided to split the planning of the two trails and moved forward with planning for the less-controversial “S1 Trail” first, and initiated an extensive review process to determine the S1 Trail alignment.

Stanford offered an alternative alignment for the S1 Trail that moved it away from Page Mill Road, but when the County indicated in the fall of 2005 that it would accept that offer, Stanford added another condition.  It offered to make the “S1 Trail” available immediately, but only if the County immediately decided to exclude the second trail, the “C1 Trail” from crossing Stanford lands in Santa Clara County.  Stanford proposed that instead of going forward with the C1 Trail within its lands, it would offer to pay San Mateo County and the Town of Portola Valley to expand an existing sidewalk along Alpine Road.  The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors voted to accept this proposal in December, 2005.  The County’s approval did not contain any environmental review of the C1 alignment, even though the environmental review for the S1 Trail had been extensive.

“Stanford’s offer for the S1 Trail was used to get the County to throw out better alignments proposed by the environmental community.  Later, Stanford said its S1 Trail offer was unavailable unless the County immediately excluded the C1 Trail, or unless another long delay ensued to hold up the S1 Trail until the C1 Trail had also been reviewed,” said Brian Schmidt, CGF’s Legislative Advocate.  “Even if San Mateo County eventually does review the proposal, that doesn’t release Santa Clara County from conducting its own review of its own decisions.”

Stanford and Santa Clara County also changed plans without environmental review by agreeing to take money instead of a trail if San Mateo County or Portola Valley rejected plans for an expanded sidewalk.  This decision to eliminate a potential Santa Clara County trail in return for money is another approval made by the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors without environmental review.  This agreement also leaves unclear what happens if Stanford money is spent by San Mateo County or Portola Valley to prepare environmental reviews but then did not go forward with the sidewalk expansion , then it is quite possible that no trail would get build nor would Stanford need to provide any money to build trails elsewhere .

“There’s a striking contrast between the S1 Trail decision with a full scale Environmental Impact Report, and the more-destructive decision on the Alpine Road sidewalk, which was made with no review at all,” said Schmidt.  “That was our basis of argument that the 180-day period in which to file suit should have applied.”

# # #

About the Committee for Green Foothills

Committee for Green Foothills is a regional grassroots organization working to establish and maintain land-use policies that protect the environment throughout San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties.  Committee for Green Foothills, established in 1962, is a Bay Area leader in the continuing effort to protect open space and the natural environment of our Peninsula.   For more information about the Committee for Green Foothills or about our work on this issue, visit www.GreenFoothills.org.

Read more!

First news roundup of 2010

Happy 2010, everybody! Looking forward to a new year with more chances to save and permanently protect our local farmlands and natural open spaces.

Below are a few news items that happened recently:

1. Stanford trail litigation at the California Supreme Court: our litigation against Stanford and Santa Clara County has been tied up on a technical issue - whether we met the right deadline to file suit. The Stanford Daily covers the issue here:

The trails fulfill part of a deal made between Santa Clara County and Stanford in 2000. Stanford started construction of the first trail, located south of Page Mill Road, but when the University tried to move the second trail across Alpine Road into San Mateo County, local environmentalists raised concerns about the effect on land near a local creek.

“There is not enough road on that side, so that means they’ll have to intrude into the riparian area of San Francisquito Creek,” said Brian Schmidt J.D. ‘99, a legislative advocate for the Committee for Green Foothills, a watchdog group that has been looking over Stanford’s shoulder since 1962.

A good article, although Stanford incorrectly asserts that they can widen the Alpine Road sidewalk if they win the lawsuit. In fact, the proposal is so destructive that San Mateo County has rejected it on their own.

2. The owner of 5,000 acre Sargent Ranch south of Gilroy has filed for bankruptcy. As the article describes, this owner has tried all kinds of methods to cash in and destroy the pristine land. Maybe this will open the door to permanent protection, instead.

3. Park proposal for Saratoga Creek: this could be interesting if the pricing works out:

The new children's garden would be developed on 1.3 acres of private property adjacent to the Peck property off Saratoga Avenue. The home currently located on the 1.3 acres would be turned into office space and an educational facility.

-Brian

Read more!

News roundup

Haven't done one of these in a while:

Home Buyers Are Drawn to Nearby Organic Farms - more evidence that urban edge agriculture has a niche:

Increasingly, subdivisions, usually master-planned developments at which buyers
buy home sites or raw land, have been treating farms as an amenity. “There are
currently at least 200 projects that include agriculture as a key community
component,” said Ed McMahon, a senior fellow with the Urban Land Institute.

Careful though - the technique could be used as an excuse for sprawl, saving only a part of a farm while dividing the rest up in subdivisions.

Controlled Burn Planned - good use of prescribed fire:

The burn is similar to four others that have occurred since 1998 at Russian
Ridge, a 1,978-acre preserve known for its wildflowers and raptors, such as
red-tail hawks. The goal is to reduce overall fire risk by removing dead and
dying brush and grasses under controlled conditions. Controlled burns also can
limit the spread of non-native weeds and other invasive vegetation that choke
out native plants, thus providing more food and habitat for native wildlife as
well as improving spring wildflower displays.

Big plans for a little butterfly - endangered species reintroduction:

A team of researchers is proposing reintroducing a vanished butterfly
to the hills above Stanford University, a biological experiment with both
promise and peril.

If the experiment succeeds, it would return Bay checkerspot
butterflies to Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve and offer important lessons to
the fledgling science of species reintroduction, which aims to save thousands of
plants and animals from extinction.

No guarantee it will work, but the risk - losing a small number of butterflies - may well be worth it. We'll watch this with a lot of interest.

-Brian

Read more!

Rescuing "sustainability" from the vaccuum of meaninglessness

(Below is a piece I submitted to the KQED Perspectives program about the Stanford Sustainable Development Study. Unfortunately they thought the focus was too narrow for the broader Bay Area, but I still think it's worth getting the word out. -Brian)


Everyone talks about "environmental sustainability," but do we know what it really means? Claims of sustainability may amount to little more than greenwashing, with no more content or definition to them than being "Earth-Friendly".

This problem has happened in Santa Clara County, with an unfulfilled promise made by Stanford University. In return for massive development rights, the university promised a Sustainable Development Study to consider the sustainability of future buildout on its core campus land. Stanford recently turned in its Study and the County approved it.

The problem? Stanford refused to study the effect of buildout for more than twenty-five years into the future. But sustainability, if it means anything at all, can't ignore the effects beyond a single generation. Climate change, for example, would drop considerably as a priority if, like Stanford, we refused to consider development and consequences for more than twenty-five years. Stanford might not want to consider long-term sprawl effects, but is a short time frame sustainable?

These aren’t questions about an academic exercise but about the essential meaning of sustainability. Here's how little importance Stanford placed on sustainability – they refused to even define "sustainability" in their Sustainable Development Study. Good definitions exist – just ask former Stanford professor and Obama science advisor John Holdren – but here the long-term timeframe of sustainability definitions lost out to the desire to leave the door open for expanding development.

Being "Earth-Friendly" may now mean almost anything, but we can still rescue sustainability. For example, Stanford did accept that it would do another Sustainable Development Study for its next major permit. Next time, Stanford's famed academic rigor could be applied to the Study itself, with sustainability defined, with measurement criteria included, with performance analyses developed, and with defensible conclusions about the long-term sustainability of its land use. The next Study can still do it right.

If the concept of sustainability is itself going to be sustained, we must give it meaning, and we can't start too soon.

With a Perspective, I’m Brian Schmidt.

Read more!

Stanford Sustainable Development Study: document dump

I normally try to post most of my written communications here on the blog. In the case of the Stanford Study, much of that didn't happen due to everything going on. Below the fold are a few of the things I wrote during that time:



--------------
(A short PowerPoint presentation on the failure to define "sustainability")

------------------------

(More on what should have been included)

Principles for a new chapter in the Stanford Sustainable Development Study regarding the Academic Growth Boundary and Stanford's future after 2035

Academic growth needs:
While acknowledging that significant increases in Stanford's population and square footage beyond that discussed in the Study's Scenario C could have environmental impacts on issues such as transportation and greenhouse gas emissions, an equivalent or greater amount of development than Scenario C could be added after 2035 without fundamentally and negatively altering the character of Stanford's core campus. There is therefore no foreseeable academic need for expanding development beyond the AGB.

Additional issues regarding sustainability and the AGB:
As Stanford increases in population and square footage, the need for nearby, accessible open space also increases.

As Stanford increases in population, the people brought to the area by Stanford will make increasing use of open space lands not owned by Stanford. Any reduction of Stanford's open space by expanding beyond the AGB would exacerbate the environmental impact on non-Stanford land.

Environmental benefits such as public transit and walkability increase through concentrating Stanford development within the AGB as opposed to expanding the existing the AGB.

Long-term conservation biology projects are in place in the Stanford Foothills and could be harmed or destroyed by expanding the AGB.

Stanford's proposed 50-year Habitat Conservation Plan also relies on protection of much of the Stanford Foothills.

The Stanford Research Park and Stanford Shopping Center areas are Stanford-owned land that are not being used for its core academic mission and could be converted back to academic work rather than encroach upon the Stanford Foothills.

Online distance learning provides a significant avenue for potential growth for Stanford while avoid many environmental impacts, including impacts on open space.

Conclusion:
There is no foreseeable academic need to expand beyond the AGB after 2035, and environmental principles for making Stanford University a sustainable community make maintaining the existing AGB even more important as development continues at Stanford. This Study concludes for the foreseeable future after 2035, the Academic Growth Boundary should not be changed.

-----------------

(Still more on what should have been included)

Should describe what sustainable development would look like

Should describe constraints on development:
Water
Sewer
Energy
Energy transmission
Greenhouse gas emissions
Other pollutants
Waste generation
Hazardous waste - full life cycle
Development density relative to surrounding communities

Should describe to what extent, if at all, Stanford's development would need to go beyond the Academic Growth Boundary for the foreseeable future.
Should describe the relationship between open space and increased development
Should describe alternatives to extending into the foothills, including converting Stanford Research Park and Shopping Center back to core mission
Should describe the role of online study

Should describe what is the likely cap on overall development
Should describe role of satellite campuses, off-site offices, and effect on overall sustainability
Should describe the relationship between increased development and increased traffic, and the traffic's effect on sustainability

Should describe other indicators of sustainability
Should indicate whether the intent is enough housing for all people studying and working on campus, including affordable housing
Should describe conservation biology goals for areas beyond the AGB for the foreseeable future, including but not limited to the habitats and time frame of the Stanford HCP
Should describe the relationship between new development and compliance with AB 32 and SB 375 and their likely successors for the foreseeable future (could be done by describing role in County's compliance or by analyzing as if the laws applied to Stanford as a separate entity).

-------------

(My notes when I prepared to speak at the April 7, 2009 hearing)

2035 is only ten years past the expiration of the existing 2025 Academic Growth Boundary at Stanford. Should we care about what happens after 2035?


Is it possible to plan past 2035? Stanford thinks so.


How can anyone plan beyond 25 years? Different levels of specificity
(and remember non-binding)


Would it do any good to make extend this study past 2035? It would influence the next General Use Permit and the next Sustainable Development Study if it did extend longer. So long as Stanford keeps thinking in the back of their heads that "the phase after this next one is when we make the Foothills look like the core campus," then they won't commit to planning the foothills for permanent low-impact outdoor recreation, low-impact studies, and conservation biology projects. Extending the Study period outward, together with the next Study, would help shake off that mindset.

Finally, the Committee strongly urges the Supervisors NOT to take the approach of letting Stanford off with something inadequate now under the idea that they'll be held to a higher standard next time. Frankly, we've heard that before regarding Stanford's environmental commitments and it will happen again in the future if it's not stopped. The next Sustainable Development Study, for example, can be improved by developing it simultaneously with the next General Use Permit, but that shouldn't let Stanford out of its current commitment. The current Study should be rejected until extends closer to what Stanford promised, or at least significantly past 2035.

----------------

(County staff responded here to numerous examples showing the legislative history of the Study meant it to have an indefinite or 99-year timeframe. Below is CGF's reply.)

I had overlooked that staff's Attachment G enumeration of the legislative history citation also contained something of a response.
Going through them briefly:
#1. Palo Alto's letter: Staff ignores the key term in the Palo Alto letter, that the vision should describe the "ultimate buildout" of the campus. That became the "maximum planned buildout potential". It's how the concept originated, and they're ignoring it because the term "ultimate" is inconvenient for their interpretation.
#2. Menlo Park: less important, but still an indication that the non-binding Study was to substitute for a lack of permanent protection, and a ten-year extension doesn't fit that role.
#3. Simitian written comments: he puts the terms together. Contra staff's earlier statement in its attachment, the Sustainable Development Study combines Beall's suggestion of such a study with Simitian's suggestion of a Buildout Study. Simitian wrote this one month before he made the motion that made the Study part of the GUP.
#4. Transcript of hearing: staff incorrectly says the concept of clustering credits was abandoned. Instead the only two Supervisors who spoke on the subject of the contents of the Study said that credits "can be looked at in the Sustainable Development Study". It would be nonsensical to look at credits for a study that extends the Academic Growth Boundary for only ten years, so I can't see how to avoid concluding that the staff's interpretation is that the Supervisors were being nonsensical. We disagree.

Read more!

Stanford Study and thank yous to Santa Clara County Supervisors

(CGF sent the following thank you and suggestion to Supervisors Kniss, Yeager, and Cortese for their resolution that went beyond the staff recommendation of simply approving Stanford's draft Sustainable Development Study. We hope that some years in the future, Supervisors Yeager and Cortese will have the chance to support our suggestion of making a new Study simultaneous with a new GUP. -Brian)


Dear President Kniss, Vice-President Yeager, and Supervisor Cortese:

I would just like to thank you all (somewhat belatedly) on behalf of the Committee for Green Foothills for your work on the Stanford Sustainable Development Study and the resolution that you passed. While more could always be done, and we would like to do more, we also very much appreciate your decision to go beyond what was placed in front of you and to make findings and recommendations that we believe will help direct future development on Stanford lands in a more sustainable direction.

In particular, President Kniss and Supervisor Cortese had a useful discussion that clarified doing another Sustainable Development Study right before or right after the next General Use Permit would be of relatively little use. One idea we would like to explore in the future, however, is that a Study could be developed simultaneously with the next the GUP, just as the EIR for the next GUP would develop simultaneously. The initial, broad outlines of the GUP proposal could direct the initial framework of both the EIR and the Sustainable Development Study. If at any point the EIR or Study show environmental problems, they could provide feedback that would help redirect the GUP proposal in a more environmental benign and sustainable direction. The EIR process can work this way, so there is no reason why a Sustainable Development Study can't as well.

President Kniss is quite correct that the next GUP will likely occur after her term in office, but both Vice-President Yeager and Supervisor Cortese may have the chance to help direct it. The Committee for Green Foothills will be happy to provide any assistance.

Thanks again.

Sincerely,
Brian Schmidt
Legislative Advocate, Committee for Green Foothills

Read more!

Shoulda, coulda, woulda - the Stanford Sustainable Development Study

Well, it may not be surprising, but it's still disappointing that Santa Clara County didn't require Stanford to do an adequate job on it's Sustainable Development Study. The Study was an important requirement of the 2000 General Use Permit that Stanford mostly dismissed with a recitation of ongoing campus programs rather than an analysis over whether the campus is on a sustainable path. The main problem, besides the lack of real analysis, was an artificially-short 25 year time frame that makes it impossible to consider whether an existing trend has a long-run impact. We've covered this at various times on our website, beginning here and in some detail here.

The Supervisors did vote for a few findings and recommendations for future improvements that the Board of Supervisors could use someday, when Stanford exhausts its current General Use Permit. These will have some value in instilling the concept of sustainability in future environmental planning, although it should have been done now.

Unfortunately, only three of the five Supervisors supported even these findings and recommendations, but we do thank Supervisors Kniss, Yeager, and Cortese for doing so. We at the Committee especially appreciate President Kniss and her aide Scott Strickland for their efforts at improvements.

So whenever things don't go as well I'd like, I always think of what I should have or could have done better. In this case it was trying to get the Supervisors to require a future Sustainable Development Study be developed simultaneously with the development a future General Use Permit, which would help redirect the Permit in a more sustainable direction. I think the Supervisors missed the idea of simultaneity. All I can say now is that we can try again to make that happen when the next Permit rolls around.

I'll add some follow-up posts that will take care of some old business on this issue during the week. We especially thank everyone who wrote into the Supervisors and asked for the improvements. We got something out of it, and we're ready for next time.

-Brian

Read more!

CGF comments at today's San Mateo County Planning Commission

(Not sure how useful this will be, but Lennie and I testified at today's San Mateo Planning Commission about Stanford's inadequate Sustainable Development Study. Attached below are my notes, improved somewhat so others might understand them. I think we had some success persuading the Commission and maybe staff. -Brian)


Primary disagreement with staff - 25 year limitation on analyzing sustainability

Question is whether this fully complies with what Stfd promised, and if not whether SM county should be interested in promoting compliance

Not just a check-off box - Stanford MUST submit an adequate plan to continue new development

Two problems with the non-compliance – nowhere in the permit plan or admin record was the study limited to a restricted time frame – a lot of info suggests otherwise

Second, that by definition you can't do an adequate sustainability study while limiting it to a short time frame like 25 years

No definition was included – page 94

Here's a def they could use:
"A sustainable process or condition is one that can be maintained indefinitely without progressive diminution of valued qualities inside or outside the system in which the process operates or the condition prevails."

No criteria for measurement, analysis, or conclusions re sustainability

Just one example of effects on SM County – traffic impacts from development post-2035

Can you analyze beyond 2035 - yes, two examples

Not sure about your process – I suggest you recommend letter not go forward as written

Analogy - Alpine Road sidewalk expansion also failed to meet Stanford's original promise

Encouraged by Joe Stagner's reference to planning to 2050

Read more!

Stanford Study meant to be permanent or at least 99 years

(The following document on the Stanford Sustainable Development Study was sent to multiple government officials today. -Brian)

Excerpts of statements in the administrative record for the December 2000 Stanford GUP that are related to the planning horizon for the Stanford Sustainable Development Study

City of Palo Alto recommendations of 10/12/99, reaffirmed 10/25/99 and 10/28/99:

Vision for Long-Term Build-out of Stanford University

· The Community Plan should include a long-term vision, beyond the 10-year scope of the Plan, for the ultimate build-out of the University. While it is recognized that this vision would not be as detailed as the ten-year Plan regarding Stanford's potential development, it would be helpful I providing insight into the University's future evolution.

Note: the call for "vision" for "ultimate build-out" was expressly reaffirmed in the later City documents. The ten-year reference for the current Plan was based on an expected fast buildout under the Stanford GUP. "Ultimate build-out" excludes Stanford's suggestion that Study only covers 10 years more than the Academic Growth Boundary protection to the year 2025.

City of Menlo Park recommendations of 10/21/99, reaffirmed by the City on 1/5/00:

The Community Plan should have both a total and permanent limitation, or cap, on building square footage and population with the understanding that it does not give Stanford the right to extend the limits beyond the cap.

Note: Menlo Park felt the permanent cap should be both mandatory and part of the Stanford GUP, so interpreting the Study to only add ten years of planning would not support the City's comments.

Written statement by Supervisor Joe Simitian of 10/24/00:

During the past 18 months some members of the public have proposed that we use this GUP and Community Plan process to establish a "cap" on the University's maximum development potential, "buildout" as it's often referred to....I am not inclined to propose that our Board establish a permanent cap or attempt to define at this point the ultimate buildout of the campus.

I am inclined to think, however that it would be irresponsible to simply ignore the need for a clearer notion about the ultimate capacity of Stanford lands and a clearer vision of what such a plan might entail. For that reason I'm inclined to suggest to my colleagues that the Conditions of Approval for the GUP include a condition requiring that Stanford undertake a Buildout Study regarding the buildout potential of Stanford University on all unincorporated lands within Santa Clara County.

Note: Here the then-Supervisor Simitian made synonymous the terms "cap," "maximum development potential," "ultimate capacity of Stanford lands," and "Buildout Study". The Buildout Study was later renamed the Sustainable Development Study.

Statements by Supervisors Simitian and Beall at the Stanford GUP hearing of 11/27/00:

Sup. Simitian:….I had proposed one tool, the use of Clustering Credits which to understate the case dramatically was not well-received by the University…. The question then is how do we deal with this issue of finding a real plan to prevent sprawl that is acceptable and manageable for all the parties involved, and what I would suggest is that…prior to the second million square feet of academic facilities being constructed and permits being issued, that the University be obliged to prepare a Sustainable Development Plan which would address these issues to the satisfaction of the Board….[I]t would in effect say okay, apparently Supervisor Simitian's suggestion for dealing with the issue of sprawl was something the University found unacceptable but now we'll give it to the University and give them the chance to say here's how they'd like to address the issues of sprawl….

Sup. Simitian:….Why don't we just indicate for the record that those five items [including Sustainable Develoment Study] are in lieu of the Clustering Credit language which was submitted originally in the Community Plan….

Sup. Beall: I think the general idea of clustering is something we're not abandoning….

Sup. Simitian: Right, I, whether or not clustering or rather clustering credits live to see another day is an open question, and it's certainly something that can be looked at in the Sustainable Development Study that Supervisor Beall and I have both referenced….

(Emphasis added.)

Note: Clustering credits had been proposed by environmental groups to give Stanford the ability to develop a certain amount in the core campus in return for permanent Foothills protection, while Supervisor Simitian proposed them for 99-year protection. There would be no point in considering them in the Study if the Study's planning horizon is only 10 years longer than the Academic Growth Boundary Protection that was being proposed at the time.

The Committee for Green Foothills has all the relevant documents and transcripts. We found nothing in any of the documents we studied to support the idea that the Study was meant to have a planning horizon short of permanent or 99-year time frame, which we would consider comparable to planning for the foreseeable future. Stanford's attempt to reduce the scope of the Study can only be done, if at all, through a General Use Permit amendment, and not through non-compliance.

Please contact Brian Schmidt (650) 968-7243 with any questions.

Read more!