Originally written March 21st, 2002.
I attended the meeting of the Planning and Transportation Commission on February 13 and arrived during the presentation of the application for the tentative tract map. In listening to the discussions, I gathered that the site's day care center provides an important service to the community, and that the owners of the site are perhaps looking towards retirement, that they would like to not be responsible for the day care anymore, and that they may seek sound financial footing for their retirement through the sale of their property for single family homes, which is also a benefit to the community as it would add to the city's insufficient supply of housing. The owners had also addressed concerns by their neighbors over potential visual intrusiveness of new homes by having a voluntary 30 foot setback.
During the discussion, it soon occurred to me that I have a solution that could address the needs of all these stakeholders.
I have been refining for several years an idea for a terraced apartment building with rooftop gardens at each level, such that each apartment has access to its own garden space. I have visited such a building outside of Paris, where it was a big success and inspired several imitative designs in its vicinity. With this configuration it is possible to have higher density housing while retaining a low-density feeling. Streets and neighborhoods are open and airy, and residents have both views of the city and access to greenery. The central part of the terraced building, which may not have direct access to the terraces and their sunlight, can be used for office or retail space, and this mixed use provides opportunities for residents to walk to work or shopping. Parking can be placed either under the structure or, if flooding is an issue, in the center of the ground floor, such that the building can be completely surrounded and covered by gardens rather than by parking lots. This improves the aesthetics of the property, increasing its value, and it reduces storm water run-off, thus reducing an area's likelihood of flooding. From the air, the whole property looks like a garden and if the gardens are filled with native plants, the local ecosystem will greatly benefit. In addition, this total coverage of the lot area with gardens eliminates the heat island effect documented in cities, in which the black pavement and tar of streets and roofs absorbs heat during the day and slowly releases it at night, leading to cities with higher ambient air temperatures, higher AC cooling costs, and more cases of heat stroke among the elderly.
Therefore I sought the tract map so that I could overlay my idea over the current and proposed uses and see how they compared. I had some time this weekend, and though I didn't have the tract map I did find a zoning map of the city with all of the property lots, so I was able to sketch out my idea and get some sense of its feasibility for this site. Unfortunately I am not sure how much of the lot is intended to be covered by the tract map, and the zoning map was a little unclear, because it had a line almost a third of the way through the 525 San Antonio lot, so I am not sure if that third is a part of the lot or not, but I assumed it is and used the entire lot for my sketch.
I sketched a three-story structure, with the day care on the ground floor, topped by eight two-story housing units around a central courtyard. Parking would be provided either underground or on the ground floor below the courtyard. The building would have 32-38 foot setbacks from the property line, the eight housing units would have 32 feet or more of garden depth between the edge of their units and the edge of the ground floor below them, and each housing unit would have a second floor with its own access to a garden. The rooftops of the houses' second floor would also have gardens.
From my sketch, I determined that it would be possible to provide on this site 68,000 square feet of day care and/or parking space, ringed by 42,500 square feet of garden (on the ground). The sizes of each of the eight housing units would range from over 4,200 sq. ft. floor area plus 6,240 sq. ft. garden area for the smallest unit, to 6,250 sq. ft. floor area plus 9,700 sq. ft. garden area for the largest unit.
I guesstimated the height of each of the three floors to be 13 feet, to allow room for the living space, piping and tubing, roof structure, and dirt and support materials for the rooftop gardens. Though this building would be large, from the perspective of a neighbor standing in their yard 20 feet outside of the property line, it would look like a 23' to 26' tall building that would be 58' away from them, and covered in vegetation. From a birds eye view, the entire lot would look like a garden, minus a short driveway and perhaps some patios, sand boxes, and skylights.
Since this is a single mixed-use structure rather than a set of single family homes, it would require a variance or Planned Community Zoning by the council, but I imagine that if the neighbors were OK with it, the council would be happy to get a mixed use project which both adds housing and retains ample day care space. The owners of the lot could either sell the lot to a developer to implement this idea, or do it themselves and either sell or rent out the housing units, and sell or lease the daycare operation.
If this idea interests you, I would be happy to share more of my information with you, such as
- my sketches,
- a 3D VRML model of twelve Palo Alto city block-sized garden apartments, navigable by computer,
- a 3D VRML model of this project (yet to be made)
- the definitive English-language book on rooftop gardens and the methods for their proper construction, and
- photos of actual such structures outside of Paris, France.
I'd love to see such a project be successfully implemented somewhere in Palo Alto, yet I certainly don't have the financial means to do so. The property at 525 San Antonio Road seems well suited to it and I imagine the owners of the property are not yet committed to any single development option. Of course, given the amount of time I have invested in sketching this idea for you, I would hope that if you were to choose to implement it, you would at least give me credit for inspiring you, and invite me to the ribbon cutting ceremony, for instance. If you think that this is an idea that the owners of this property may wish to pursue or learn more about, please let me know.
Thank you,
Cedric
Originally written March 21st, 2002.