the general plan

Portola Valley’s General Plan is the Town’s long-range, comprehensive blueprint for its future character, development and preservation.  Originally written and adopted by the Town Council in 1965, the General Plan has since been continuously amended, updated and expanded to address important changes in the conditions and circumstances affecting the Town.

The General Plan is comprised of an Introduction that sets out the Town’s major community goals, and twelve separate elements intended to shape and guide different aspects of the community’s future character and development, including its land use, preservation of open space, recreation, housing, conservation and public safety.  Collectively, the separate Plan elements provide an internally consistent framework of goals, principles, standards and policies to orient and guide Town officials in the interpretation and application of the Town’s zoning, site development, subdivision, building and other land use regulations.  

No single element is dispositive or controlling.  Rather, all of the plan’s elements are to be considered and applied collectively as part of an overall framework for planning and decision-making.

While it is intended that the majority of proposals included in the plan be carried out over a span of approximately 15 to 20 years, the plan calls for regular evaluation to determine whether it continues to reflect the aims of the citizens and to provide a realistic guide for the future regulation and development of Portola Valley.

Time to Re-Evaluate

PVNU believes that two important elements of the General Plan — its Safety element and its Housing element — are in urgent need of evaluation and revision, particularly in light of the Town’s recent proposals for housing or commercial development of the Frog Pond, the Stanford Wedge and the Meadow Preserve. 

Safety Element

The Safety Element is intended to prevent the loss of life, to reduce injuries and property damage, and to minimize economic and social dislocation that may result from earthquakes, other geologic hazards, fires and flooding.  It seeks “to increase public awareness of geologic, fire and flooding hazards, and of available ways to avoid or mitigate the effects of these hazards.”  By attempting to define the relative degree of risk in various parts of town, it strives to provide a sound basis for designating land uses that are appropriate to the geologic, fire and flooding risks of a proposed development site, and thereby “minimize the risk to human life from structures located in hazardous areas.”

The Safety Element was written and adopted in 2010 before we experienced the catastrophic wildfires that have plagued California since 2015, the increasingly deleterious effects of climate change, or the devastating coronavirus pandemic of 2020.  It is in urgent need of revision and updating in light of lessons learned from each of these calamities.

In particular, the Safety Element does not incorporate many of the lessons learned since 2010 from California’s recent experience with catastrophic wildfires.  

  • It does not assess the topographic, climatic, seasonal and weather conditions that can accelerate and exacerbate the rapid spread of wildfire throughout a community;

  • It does not assess the way in which unsound land use policy and/or development can threaten the lives and property of neighboring property owners as well as those within a proposed development;  

  • It does not consider how seismic events can cause and contribute to the rapid, uncontrolled proliferation and spread of fire or the disruption of water supplies or electrical service to combat such fires;

  • It does not assess the fire risk that existing gas, electric or solar utilities pose within town or appropriate steps to reduce such risks;

  • It does not provide for community-wide programs to mitigate the risk of wildfire ignition and spread in the community;

  • It does not address the potential need to evacuate the town, nor does it provide comprehensive procedures to timely inform residents of evacuation orders, safe routes of escape to implement such orders, or appropriate procedures to organize and administer post-evacuation relief and recovery activities; and   

  • It does not evaluate the potential for pandemic, or the resulting need to provide for and meet the needs of a population required to shelter in place for extended periods.

Read our Wildfire Safety pages for some of the important lessons learned from California’s recent wildfires and the steps we can take to protect Portola Valley from wildfire.

Housing Element

Since 1985, the General Plan and each of its elements have served to frame and advance the future political discourse and governance of Portola Valley by forthrightly stating – upfront – the commonly held public objectives, principles and standards of our community on a variety of challenges and needs we collectively confront.  

The General Plan elevates no single challenge or need, and no single element of the plan, above all others, but instead recognizes and respects the community’s right and need to balance a plethora of competing interests and challenges by respecting and weighing a variety of different, important perspectives.  

While the 2014 amendment of the Housing Element claims to be consistent with the other elements of the General Plan, it also states that the General Plan’s other elements will be amended to be consistent with the Housing element.  Housing Element 2409.  In short, it purports to be the controlling and highest statement of Town policy.

The 2014 Housing Element amendment abandons the General Plan’s balanced, deliberative approach to important, difficult land use decisions and instead presumes to subordinate the future needs and priorities of the Town for public safety, open space preservation, sound stewardship of our natural surroundings, recreation and ease of circulation to its housing agenda.  Dismissing each of these perspectives, it sets forth a programmatic agenda to increase and expand the development of higher density housing in Portola Valley.

In furtherance of that agenda, the 2014 Housing Element amendment purports to examine the suitability of a number of alternative housing development sites in town with reference to their geologic and fire risk constraints:  

“Portola Valley faces different constraints on development than any other community on the Peninsula, with the possible exception of Woodside, much of Portola Valley is unsuitable for development for one or more reasons.  The major constraints on development are the presence of the San Andreas fault, large areas of landslides, the steepness of slopes, and the fire hazards due to natural conditions.”

While the 2014 Housing amendment professes concern for the selection of safe development sites in Portola Valley’s physically risky and challenging setting, in practice it simply ignores the serious safety issues with Stanford’s proposed housing site.  And in calling for the development of 27 single family dwellings on Stanford’s property in the Alpine Canyon, it also ignores and dismisses the long-held and carefully-crafted policies, principles and standards set forth in our General Plan and Municipal Code for safe land use, protection of open space and wildlife habitat, conservation of natural resources and scenic preservation that disfavor such dense housing in such perilous and environmentally sensitive settings.    

After a lengthy discussion of alternative development projects, the 2014 amendment zeros in on Stanford’s property in the Alpine Canyon as a potential site for dense housing development.  It does so, however, with no consideration or acknowledgment whatsoever of the severe seismic, ground shaking, liquefaction, or fire risks of the site.  Nor does it address or consider the long-standing land use, open space, conservation, recreational and scenic policies that discourage and oppose development of the site.

Inexplicably ignoring its own seismic and fire risk exhibits as well as the Safety element, nowhere does the 2014 Housing element amendment refer to or mention the fault running through Stanford’s proposed housing site, the site’s severe risk of liquefaction, the severe fire risk to neighboring properties created by the steep slopes surrounding the proposed site or the fact that the Town’s expert consultant classified Stanford’s proposed site as among the highest fire risks in Town.

At bottom, it is the 2014 amendment of the Housing Element that needs to be brought into conformity with the remainder of the General Plan, not the reverse as the 2014 amendment wrongly states.  Increased urbanization – increased density of housing – is not Portola Valley’s overriding objective nor is it the solution for our unique needs and interests.

As justification for development of dense, multi-family housing on Stanford’s property in the Alpine Canyon, the 2014 amendment relies on an ill-defined “Affiliated Housing” program of the town.  The Town’s website provides no comprehensive description of the terms of an “Affiliated Housing Program”, nor any reference to any authorization or implementing legislation for such a program in our Municipal Code.  Nonetheless, the amendment states that the “program allows multifamily housing to be built on three sites in town:  the Sequoias, the Priory School, and the Stanford Wedge.”

The ostensible justification for the program – promotion of affordable housing for workers in Portola Valley – certainly applies to the Sequoias and the Priory, but it does not apply to Stanford.  Stanford is not seeking to provide housing for workers in Portola Valley.  Rather, it is seeking to provide housing in Portola Valley for its faculty at Stanford.  

The most recent May 8, 2019 report of the Town staff on the status of the town’s housing element initiatives states that the town is exploring expansion of the Affiliated Housing Program with other potential partners.  The report does not identify what candidates the town is pursuing.

If, as the 2014 amendment appears to contend, a large employer’s ownership of land in town is sufficient justification to allow construction of non-conforming, dense housing projects in town for its favored employees, what distinguishes Stanford from any other large, self-interested employer, such as Facebook, Google, Apple or any other wealthy organization who similarly wishes to benefit its favored employees by acquiring and developing land in Portola Valley?  Do we really wish to compromise our public safety and upend our General Plan and Municipal Code so developers like Stanford can create company-towns in Portola Valley?

In addition, the 2014 amendment bases its analysis of low-income housing needs in Portola Valley on the interests of the three largest employers in town, not the interests or needs of the majority of low-income families who work in and around Portola Valley.  Yet it is precisely these families — tradespeople, retail workers, shopkeepers, medical assistants, caregivers, restaurant workers, laborers — who are most in need of affordable housing, and least likely to find it.  Their needs should be considered and addressed in the Town’s planning.

PVNU believes the 2014 amendment to the Housing element should be revised to bring it into better alignment with the policies of the remaining elements of the General Plan by:

  • Making clear that the town’s housing policy is subordinate to and intended to promote

    • The protection of public health and safety throughout the community, and

    • The protection and preservation of Portola Valley’s unique and increasingly vulnerable rural open space and natural wildlands habitat

  • Clearly stating the common public objectives, principles and standards Portola Valley will apply to guide the future development of new market rate and affordable housing consistent with these priorities

  • Establishing an affordable housing policy that elevates and serves the needs and interests of low-income families who work or live within Portola Valley over those of housing developers