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Palo Alto planning staff outline San Antonio Road area plan proposing up to several thousand new homes
Summary
City planning staff presented a study session on the San Antonio Road area plan, describing a 275‑acre priority development area, multi‑modal transportation improvements and a range of housing scenarios (roughly 3,900–7,000 new units in high‑buildout scenarios) while commissioners raised questions about affordability, displacement and school capacity.
Robert Kane, principal planner and project lead, presented the San Antonio Road area plan to the Human Relations Commission as a study session on a long‑range effort to redesign a 275‑acre corridor in South Palo Alto.
Kane described the plan area, which the city designated a priority development area in 2023, and said the team is working on land‑use, mobility and implementation tools with an intended plan completion in early 2028. "We're about a third of the way through the planning process right now," Kane said.
He discussed four subareas likely to experience the most change and said build‑out could range widely depending on policy direction: Kane described scenarios from roughly 3,900 up to 7,000 new residential units if the area fully redeveloped, compared with just under 400 current units in the plan area.
Kane emphasized pedestrian‑first streets, low‑stress bike routes, better Caltrain station connections, and new parks in areas currently more than a 10‑minute walk from open space. He also noted the plan will include CEQA environmental review and that the city is coordinating with Mountain View on cross‑border impacts.
Commissioners asked for explicit affordability targets (AMI bands and percentages), senior housing commitments, and displacement mitigations for existing RV dwellers and commercial tenants. Kane said those policy choices are part of the next stage: "We're not at the policy stage yet...we plan on coming back to the commission later in the year when we start developing our policies for the plan."
