News
Subscribe to Our Newsletter
Sign up for Email Updates
CGF In the News
Press Inquiries
Past Articles
Calendar

Read CGF's Nov. 11, 2004 Press release

Stanford: No negotiating on trails; University refuses to consider compromise on mitigation for development

Read CGF's Nov. 12, 2004 comment letter on the Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Report for the S1 trail

Stanford's mitigation efforts lag; County conducting illegal negotiations
by Brian Schmidt

In 2001, after years of negotiation with Santa Clara County and the community, Stanford received a permit to develop an enormous area on campus, approximately five million square feet of total development. As part of that permit, the university committed to a number of actions, including recreational trail access for hikers, designed to reduce or mitigate the impact of that development on the environment and the community.

As recommended by Santa Clara County's flawed environmental report, the route ofor the S1 trail would follow existing trails and roads, including Old Page Mill Road (above) - and add no recreational value for the community.


Stanford promised to produce two trail plans for dedication within the first year of the ten-year permit. The S1 trail would run near the southern edge of the Stanford foothills, and the C1 trail would run near the northern edge.

As an alternative to adding any new trails, Stanford now advocates widening existing trails and sidewalks, and claims that this constitutes fulfillment of its promise to provide new, alternative hiking routes on the northern C1 trail. County staff appears to be saying the same thing regarding the southern S1 trail.

To complicate matters about which CGF is already concerned, the county has conducted secret negotiations with Stanford, the permit-holder, without allowing others to review the same documents.

Public trails delayed and endangered
While the exact alignment of the S1 trail was not detailed in the permit, the approved Community Plan expressly stated that some flexibility would be needed in aligning the trail. No one (including Stanford) stated during the approval process that the trail would be restricted to the very edges of Stanford land.

Accordingly, CGF and others proposed trail alignments that were towards the southern edge of campus, but were also flexible enough to move away in some areas and provide real recreational opportunities for hikers. In response, Stanford threatened Santa Clara County with a possible lawsuit if it even studied these alternatives in the EIR, and the county gave in to Stanford's threats.

Environmental report fails to analyze recreational value
The county just released its draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) on the S1 trail. Unfortunately, the report examined only the trails' negative impacts, while ignoring the trails' beneficial role in reducing the impacts from Stanford's development.

Given this perspective, it's not surprising that the DEIR concluded that the best trail is a glorified sidewalk known as the S1-A route - a modification of an existing trail rather than a new trail. It logically follows that a modified trail would have a smaller impact than a new trail.

"Overall [the S1-A route] would result in fewer mitigation measures, primarily because it is a short alignment that would extend for approximately 0.84 miles . . . and because it would be constructed in an existing paved area without steep slopes . . . . Therefore the S1-A alignment [when modified to never leave existing roads] is identified as the Environmentally Superior Alternative."

The S1-A alignment has little value as mitigation because it does not provide a connection to other trails or parks. The county should not choose this alignment as the best option.

The report also failed to include alternative trails that would provide the best recreation and that would reduce Stanford's environmental impacts. After all, the whole point of the trail mitigation is to reduce impacts on existing trails from new development and the resulting population pressures from the people Stanford is bringing to the area.

Of course, based on the criteria established in the report, the county might have selected the "no-trail construction alternative" as environmentally superior, because it would be even shorter and require no mitigation.

CGF has asked the county to fix these significant flaws in the report and analyze trail alignments for their mitigation value. We hope that the county will avoid repeating this obvious mistake on the C1 Trail planned for the north side of the foothills.

County conducting illegal secret negotiations
An especially disturbing aspect of the environmental review process is that the county shared prior drafts of this environmental report with Stanford, and apparently spent significant amounts of time negotiating with Stanford over the content. However, the county refused to show those drafts to anyone else. Our requests to evaluate the draft documents (even as university officials were reviewing them) were denied.

Besides the unsavory "feel" of this type of secret discussion, even the most ethical governmental officials (such as those at the county) will find their conclusions influenced by biased discussion.

Moreover, this behavior is illegal. The Public Records Act allows agencies to withhold drafts of documents from the public under restricted circumstances. The law does not allow the government to share drafts with favored members of the public while denying them to others. If the aim is to improve accuracy by giving applicants a chance to see working drafts, then accuracy could be improved still more by giving all parties the chance to review them.

County officials argue that they are just following standard practice. While this practice seems to be widespread, that does not make it legal. The City of Palo Alto does not follow the county's practice, so we know that, for some local governments, acting in a legal fashion is possible.

CGF committed to working for good trails and a good process
The Committee for Green Foothills and other environmental groups have plenty of work to do in the coming months. We will be reviewing environmental documents on both the S1 and C1 trails, advocating for safe, recreational and scenic trail alignments that provide true mitigation for Stanford's development rights, and making sure that the community is adequately represented.

Unfortunately, three years later, we are still waiting for the required recreational trail access. However, we are committed to ensuring that Stanford fulfills its obligation to the community, and we will continue to insist that documents can be reviewed by everyone in an open, public and legal manner.