An agenda item for a proposed project at 156 California Avenue was removed from the Palo Alto Architectural Review Board agenda on Oct. 2 at the applicant’s request, city attorneys and staff said. Because the item was not on the agenda, the board did not discuss project details; Deputy City Attorney Madeline Salah said the withdrawal also means the meeting will not count toward the project’s five-hearing limit.

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The item was pulled at the request of the applicant,” Madeline Salah said. “Because it’s not on the agenda, we can’t get into the details of the project today, but it won’t count towards the five-hearing limit.”

During the meeting’s public-comment period, Patience Young, a resident at 157 California Avenue across the street from the project site, used her allotted time to ask questions about the proposal’s size, affordable-housing sequencing, delivery logistics for a supermarket tenant, laundry facilities, potential solar incorporation, and parking. Young said the project sketches show a 17-story tower and a three-building sequence in which a podium and tower would be built before a third building that the application lists as providing low-income units.

“My question 1 of my questions is the third building, is that the subsidized housing, housing because it is 78 units and the project specifies 77 units to be, low income,” Young said. She also asked whether, if the applicant failed to complete the third building, the required affordable-unit percentage would have to be applied to the tower and podium.

Young raised additional questions about fenestration and balcony access, where large grocery trucks would deliver to a ground-level supermarket (Mollie Stone’s), whether the complex would provide shared laundry facilities or require in-unit hookups, pet accommodations and amenity space, and whether the project would include solar. The resident asked how members of the public could get answers about the proposals when the project planner or applicant were not present; staff said the public should contact the assigned project planner by email and that emailed comments are included in future meeting packets for board review.

Staff told the board that planned materials prepared for the Oct. 2 meeting remain available and that staff will forward public questions to the assigned project planner. “When it is an active application, we do have an assigned project planner, and their information is available online,” staff said. The board did not take action on the 156 California Avenue project because it was withdrawn from the agenda.

The withdrawal means the ARB will not vote on the project at this meeting and the item will be rescheduled. Staff and the deputy city attorney advised residents who want answers to submit written comments to the project planner so their concerns are included in the official project record for any future public hearing.