The Palo Alto City Council voted unanimously yesterday to approve an eight-story, 228-apartment building at 762 San Antonio Road, clearing the way for an 85-foot tower on a stretch of road already lined with new housing. The vote came after neighbors warned that fire trucks and ambulances could struggle to reach nearby homes during commute hours, and that San Antonio Road already experiences gridlock.
The project, approved 6-0 on August 17, replaces a site long used for commercial vehicle sales, according to Palo Alto Daily Post reporter Braden Cartwright. City planning documents show the application, 24PLN-00120, invoked California's Builder's Remedy provision under Government Code 65589.5(d)(5) to override the parcel's Service Commercial - Automobile Dealership Combining District zoning, according to City of Palo Alto records. The 1.78-acre site was previously home to Hengehold Truck Sales, which was owned by Globe Investments, led by David and Matt Hengehold, per The Real Deal.
Neighbors Raise Fire Safety and Traffic Alarms
Two neighbors told the council that San Antonio Road already experiences gridlock and expressed concern that fire trucks and ambulances may have difficulty reaching their homes during commute times, the Daily Post reported. Resident Joan Larrabee said that adding all these people is unsafe due to the risk of kitchen fires. Former council member Pat Burt said a setback measure — pulling upper floors back from the street — could have a favorable impact on those concerns.
The council ultimately encouraged developer Gary Johnson to set the building's upper floors farther back from the street, but Johnson and his architect said doing so would make the apartments too narrow, according to the same Daily Post account. Johnson, who is developing the project for Acclaim Companies, said the design is intended to maximize square footage. Not everyone objected: resident Julie Lythcott-Haims said the location is appropriate for this level of height and density.
Builder's Remedy Bypasses Local Zoning Limits
Johnson invoked the Builder's Remedy, a state law provision that allows developers to ignore local rules on height, density and design when a city's housing plan is out of compliance with state requirements. The council also voted to accelerate plans to add a bike lane on San Antonio Road, a move aimed at easing some of the safety concerns raised during the meeting.
The finished building will include 19 studios, 121 one-bedroom, 63 two-bedroom, and 25 three-bedroom apartments, along with 30 deed-restricted affordable units, 284 car spaces, and 252 bicycle spaces, according to San Francisco YIMBY. Studio T-Square designed the 85-foot structure with backward h-shaped floor plates wrapping around a podium-top pool deck and a seventh-floor mountain-view amenity terrace, the outlet has also reported. Acclaim Companies is separately pursuing a seven-story, 368-unit complex at 3150 El Camino Real on the former Fish Market and McDonald's site, per The Real Deal.
Part of a Broader San Antonio Road Buildout
San Antonio Road is planned for thousands of new homes, and city planners have systematically targeted the corridor for high-density housing, having already approved 102 units at 788 San Antonio Road and 75 units at 800 San Antonio Road, according to San José Spotlight. Palo Alto leaders have pointed to neighboring Mountain View's San Antonio Specific Plan, where a decade of planning turned commercial parcels into mixed-use hubs like The Village at San Antonio, as a model, the outlet noted.
The approval reflects a pattern Hoodline has documented before: the council voted 6-0 in April to approve a separate Builder's Remedy project, a seven-story, 321-unit building at 3606 El Camino Real, over similar objections about traffic congestion and bike safety. Palo Alto is under state mandate through its 6th Cycle Regional Housing Needs Allocation to plan for 6,086 new homes through 2031, including 3,664 for low- and very-low-income households, a quota that has repeatedly pushed the city toward approving Builder's Remedy projects it might otherwise resist. All three of Palo Alto's Caltrain stations, including the nearby San Antonio stop, service more than 72 weekday train arrivals, a frequency that triggers state transit-oriented streamlining rules limiting how much cities can slow down projects near those corridors.
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