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Comment by rhino369 | Hacker News Reader

If the city was smart they'd cut a deal in which the whole site is replaced with 40 story high rise apartment buildings. And the city can purchase one and let these people live there with affordable rent.

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Some parts of Palo Alto don't even give permits for TWO story houses (to preserve the privacy and character of the surrounding one-story houses, particularly those Eichlers with the entire rear wall of the house being made of glass).

Expecting a high-rise development on this property is fanciful. Expect 2,000 square-foot townhouses, selling for $2 million. That's what they built across the street.

[1] http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/19506109_zpid/

I know I'm not being realistic. But if CA wasn't so anti-growth that's what would happen.

This idea is absurd. First of all a high rise in this neighborhood is terrible city planning and would never work. This is the place we're talking about

https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4142855,-122.129379,3a,75y,2...

You can't just drop a 40 story building onto a residential street, even apart from it being illegal due to city ordinances. The infrastructure is not here (and you can't build it in 19 days). If somehow you got it built it would only make everyone miserable. This street already gets kind of whack during the school year since it terminates at Gunn High School (which I guess they would simply make twice as big).

Second of all -- cut a deal with who? Not just Buena Vista residents, the whole city. Nobody wants that. A developer would have to be insane to even try.

A few years back in a nearby neighborhood they tried to replace a community orchard with new housing. Not even displacing people, just trying to develop affordable housing on top of peoples' PLANTS. It was pushed to a referendum and Palo Alto residents rejected it. The developer had already bought the land and had to sell it.

Okay, maybe it shouldn't be exactly there. But we have to start building more vertically on the Peninsula -- we just have to.

And I understand fully that it's going to take a sea change in local sentiment before that can happen.

You want to build vertically in an earthquake prone area?

You need to move a bit east, friend. There _is_ going to be an earthquake.

Earthquake resistance isn't an immediate win for low-density housing. Tall buildings can be safer in an earthquake than single-family homes and low-rise townhouses, both due to a lower structural resonance frequency and the ability to spread the cost of advanced safety features (like mass dampers) across more tenants.

Yeah. We're going to disagree here.

Let's revisit this after the next big earthquake to see which buildings survived the event in a habitable condition and monitor which areas are without utilities the longest.

This is ridiculous. It's well-known how to build taller buildings in an earthquake-safe way -- San Francisco has plenty of them, as does LA.

Anyway, we don't need to go to 40 stories to be "vertical". The vast majority of residential structures around here are 1 or 2 stories. Even 8-story buildings would start to make a difference.

Of course, they would add to traffic...

40 stories is probably more than a little absurd, but you can definitely take an area that size and build in high rise buildings.

Of course, you'd need do some infrastructure upgrades. It takes years to build high rise buildings. That is more than enough to add streets, buses that run to the nearest caltran stop.

>Second of all -- cut a deal with who? Not just Buena Vista residents, the whole city. Nobody wants that. A developer would have to be insane to even try.

That's sort my point. The whole bay area has a Luddite view on developing their cities. Zoning and permitting processes are designed to manage growth, but in California they are there to prevent it.

Talking about growth here is a red herring. The density in that trailer park is probably higher than any residential neighborhood in Palo Alto, and they're replacing ~400 residents with 184 luxury apartments. There will be some increase in density perhaps but not much.

You say if the city were smart it would tear it down and build high rises on the site. But does it make sense? There's a big park nearby with donkeys, sheep, and chicken coops. There's a community orchard nearby as I said. On the other side of Foothill Expressway you've got huge estates and vinyards. But the much higher density housing in Buena Vista must be razed?

I think you're making a larger argument here which is independent of what's going on in this neighborhood. It's certainly a valid point. But you need to separate it from the Buena Vista issue. The controversy is not about growth, it's about whether the people there deserve to live in Palo Alto.

You are of course assuming that these people are willing to live in a 40 story high rise apartment. I am not saying they are entitled to live where they are currently living, or making any other claim like that. But you are making an assumption that just because someone enjoys living in a trailer house, they must also be ok with living in an apartment. That may not be the case, at lease that's not the case for me.

Also, I am not familiar with the area in question, but isn't it quite susceptible to earthquakes? I am not saying don't build a multistory building, but 40 stories?

Unfortunately, people are downvoting you rather than engaging with your argument.

Apartments are a very different living situation than living in your own building on land. One has a lot more open area for projects, playtime, vehicle maintenance, outdoor cooking and gathering, etc.

I live in apartments because I do not want a yard to have to maintain. And I know many people who do not live in apartments because they want a yard to use for projects and enjoying. It's ridiculous to assume that these people would want to live in apartments without asking them.

And it's inhumane to suggest that people with fewer resources should live in the space that someone else chose for them, merely because they have fewer resources.

> But you are making an assumption that just because someone enjoys living in a trailer house, they must also be ok with living in an apartment. That may not be the case, at lease that's not the case for me.

good point. a home with a private yard for the kids to play, no shared walls, a porch to sit on while you wave to neighbors on their evening stroll -- these things aren't possible in high-rise apartment buildings, which by comparison might feel like confinement.

also, many people who've never lived in a trailer park, or don't know any manufactured homeowners, might not understand the sense of community that a lot of trailer park residents feel.

i'm not saying that a sense of community is not possible in a high-rise apartment building, but in my experience, high-rise apartment buildings have a much different atmosphere than gated communities.

> Also, I am not familiar with the area in question, but isn't it quite susceptible to earthquakes? I am not saying don't build a multistory building, but 40 stories?

SF and san jose have lots of high-rises, as do other big cities near fault lines :)

I'm sure they'd rather live in the trailer, but you can't always get what you want. They are living on someone else's property.

I fully expect they'd rather live in a cheap apartment in Palo Alto over a wherever the nearest empty lot large enough and cheap enough to host a trailer park. I'd imagine that's pretty far away.

What will actually happen is that they will get evicted and 2 million dollar mini-mcmansions will get built there instead.

very mini. With price per ft2 now nearly $1.4k, $2m is 1430 ft^2. That's not tiny, but for a 3 bedroom it's far from a mansion.

http://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Palo_Alto-California/marke...

And where are those people going to live during the year or two it'll take to build that?

Good point. They could do the first building for the community, only displacing a few families. Then once they move in, go full blast on the rest.

That would delay the project.

They could hire this company:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/30/chinese-constru...

It was here in HN a while ago.

This seems risky from a safety perspective. According to Wikipedia, the status is "On Hold, Suspended until the Project passes relevant safety examinations and gains building permits."[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_City_(Changsha)

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