(If you don't know what and where Alma Plaza is, start with the main page first.)
This Q&A was wriiten by Dorothy Bender, who notes that Alma Plaza is described in the Comprehensive Plan under Neighborhood Centers in Policies L-37, 38 and 39, plus Programs L-36, 37, and 38.
You can read the Comprehensive Plan here, and read the Palo Alto Municipal Code here.
No. The Comp Plan considers Alma Plaza to be a "Neighborhood Center". Neighborhood Centers should provide small-scale local-serving retail stores within walking distance of neighborhoods. They should be pleasant, attractive places that provide opportunities for social contact with friends and neighbors. This is a design goal.
Policy L-33 which says, "Maintain the scale and local-serving focus of neighborhood centers," seeks to implement this goal. The words "scale" and "local-serving" have real, unambiguous meanings. This project does not maintain the scale and it introduces a regional store into a neighborhood retail zone. A large-scale regional, chain store is not considered to be "local-serving" merely because some locals might shop there.
Over time, Alma Plaza should look more like Charleston Center. The proposed project would make it look like the Safeway/Payless in Menlo Park. Lucky's owner bought the remaining property in Alma Plaza and will replace the small, independently owned retail shops with one massive, regional-serving conglomerate store. That is not what is intended by the Comprehensive Plan.
No. The applicant is requesting a zoning change to accommodate the project. The applicant is also implicitly asking Palo Alto to waive its 20,000 square foot city-wide limitation on grocery stores.
Alma Plaza is currently zoned "PC", Planned Community. The Municipal Code says a PC district is intended "for unified, comprehensively planned developments which are of substantial public benefit, and which conform with and enhance the policies and programs of Palo Alto's Comp Plan."
The Comp Plan lists Alma Plaza as one of Palo Alto's four Neighborhood Centers. In this case, the PC zoning could and should be used by a cooperative developer to create a neighborhood shopping center of small-scale, independently owned retail shops anchored by a vibrant 20,000 square foot grocery store such as Mollie Stone's or Piazza's. Instead it is being used to help a chain store expand its grocery store beyond limits allowed in Palo Alto. "Separate" retail uses such as bank, florist, and bakery are no longer separate or independent -- they are part of one conglomerate Lucky/Sav-on store.
Program L-36 of the Comp Plan says "Evaluate current zoning to determine if it supports the types of uses and scale of buildings considered appropriate in Neighborhood Centers." This evaluation should take place before consideration of any this project, or this evaluation should take place now un-colored by the current project.
Author: Jonathan Angel
www.angel.org
Sincere thanks to the Palo Alto Weekly for its great online "morgue" of
old articles
This page last updated 6/8/99