Stanford offers $4.7 billion package as part of its proposed expansion

PALO ALTO — In a bid to get Santa Clara County to restart development agreement negotiations, Stanford University is offering to pony up $4.7 billion in benefits tied to its massive campus expansion proposal and to provide more housing than initially planned.

The benefits would include $1.17 billion in transportation improvements and $138 million in funding to the Palo Alto Unified School District.

In exchange, Stanford wants the county to grant it vested development rights and to repeal two ordinances that require the university to pay affordable housing fees and designate 16 percent of new housing developments to affordable units.

The university says it will still meet housing requirements as a part of the campus expansion deal, but wants the laws repealed because they unfairly single out the university to resolve a regional housing crisis.

A development agreement is a voluntary deal that enshrines certain community benefits in exchange for certainty about development requirements for a project. In April, the county suspended negotiations with Stanford over such an agreement after the university and the Palo Alto Unified School District brokered their own $138.4 million pact. The county said that broke rules that bar Stanford from making outside deals during negotiations.

Stanford submitted a 50-page proposal to the county on Monday afternoon with hopes the county will reopen talks.

Stanford is proposing to:

• Build three quarters of new housing units, including 575 below-market rate housing units, in the first few years of the expansion, rather than building housing in phases
• Receive credit for two existing housing projects that were in the pipeline before it applied for the campus expansion
• Build at least 1,115 new housing units, and 2,600 student beds, on Stanford land
• Provide $15.25 million in bike, pedestrian and transit improvements in San Mateo County and $15.05 million in improvements in the Palo Alto, based on requests submitted by both agencies
• Give $138.5 million to the Palo Alto Unified School District, of which $15 million which would be paid upfront
• Eliminate a cap on commuting trips affecting people living on campus in exchange for paying $1.27 million in fees
• Allocate $1.13 billion for alternative transportation

Catherine Palter, associate vice president of land use and environmental planning for Stanford, said brokering a development agreement would be beneficial not only to Stanford but also to other community groups seeking benefits from the deal.

“It really is providing certainty for all parties,” said Palter.

The proposed campus expansion would occur over the next two decades, adding 2.27 million square feet of academic facilities, including for transportation and child care, 2,600 student beds and 550 faculty and staff housing units.

Local officials and residents have raised concerns about how the expansion would impact an already strapped housing supply in nearby communities, prompting the county to recently require Stanford increase workforce housing almost fourfold, from the proposed 550 to 2,172 units.

Stanford has said it’s willing to increase the amount of housing if it gets credit for half of 1,300 units of graduate student housing already in the pipeline, and a 215-unit faculty and staff housing project in Menlo Park. Both of those projects were planned independent of the campus expansion.

The university is also offering to build three-quarters of the new housing proposed for the expansion, including all of the affordable units, within the first few years of the expansion, rather than phasing it out over more than two decades.

Jean McCown, associate vice president for government and community relations at Stanford, said the university’s other developments have all had development agreements and dealing with the county has been frustrating.

“We know from experience how successful these mutual engagements can be,” said McCown.

“We think we can…put these types of solutions into an agreement, if we can work with Santa Clara County,” said McCown.

This story is developing.