by Don Kazak

The Palo Alto City Council, in a surprising unanimous vote Monday night, underscored that its goal is the permanent protection of the Stanford foothills as open space.

The city had earlier requested a 25-year time limit for the academic growth boundary being established along Junipero Serra Boulevard. It repeated that goal Monday night, but with an important twist.

Now, the city is suggesting that within three years the county establish building and population zoning densities for the Stanford campus and foothills so that the idea of a "density bonus" or "transfer of development rights" can be used to link future campus development to preservation of open space in the foothills.

"Are we going to send a strong message on permanent open space?" Mayor Liz Kniss asked her colleagues before the votes Monday night.

The council did, but it's only in the form of recommendations, since the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors is the decision-maker on the 10-year general use permit application from Stanford that is now pending before the board. The board is scheduled to take final action Oct. 31.

The council's recommendations include suggestions that the proposed general use permit, as now amended by the county Planning Commission, be modified by the county board in several other ways, with the open space suggestions being the most significant.

The City Council also reaffirmed its position on a matter not technically part of the pending general use permit but which is still an active issue: That the Carnegie Foundation be denied in its separate application to build a 20,000-square-foot think tank in the Stanford hills near two existing think tanks.

"Permanent is the way it should be," Councilman Jim Burch said of the desire for permanent protection for the Stanford hills.

Attorneys for the Committee for Green Foothills recently sent the county an 18-page memorandum suggesting legal mechanisms for achieving permanent protection.

A law firm retained by Stanford last week responded with a memorandum saying that the planning mechanisms suggested for permanent open space protection would be unconstitutional and would result a "taking" of property rights.

But in a confidential memo to the council that was made public by council approval Monday night, City Attorney Ariel Calonne sided with the legal opinion offered by the Committee for Green Foothills.

All of that may become moot, depending on what the county board decides to do next Tuesday.

In other actions Monday night, the council reaffirmed or slightly modified previous positions on different provisions in the Stanford development plan, as now amended.

One of those would be to recommend that Stanford be allowed to build graduate student housing along El Camino Real near the Stanford Shopping Center, partially as a trade-off for getting open space assurances elsewhere. "We have to consider these infill sites to prevent sprawl," Councilwoman Nancy Lytle said.

In a related matter, Stanford President John Hennessy sent a letter to the City Council Monday calling the latest county Planning Commission recommendations "a workable compromise" in coming up with a final plan to govern campus growth for the next decade.

Stanford wants to build about 2 million square feet of new academic buildings about 3,000 additional units (approximately 2.8 million square feet) of faculty, staff and graduate student housing.

A key point of difference was the city's--and county's--desire for a 25-year academic growth boundary for the foothills. Hennessy says the university can now accept the 25-year time span for the boundary, with the proviso that the the boundary may have to be reconsidered before 25 years depending on the university's future housing needs.

In one surprise that momentarily jarred the City Council Monday night, Councilwoman Judy Kleinberg interrupted a council discussion early in the meeting to say that she had just opened a letter from Stanford which apparantly suggested that she recuse herself from the deliberations because her husband's law partner is advising Stanford.

"I am not pleased with this," Kleinberg said, adding that she intended to ask Calonne later to rule on whether she was in any potential conflict of interest.

Lytle's reaction was more direct: "I'm stunned." Kniss called a quick break so the council could regroup. Kleinberg watched the rest of the meeting from the audience, along with Dena Mossar, whose husband works at Stanford.