March 31, 2023
City of Palo Alto Mayor Kou and Members of the City Council
Via email: city.council@cityofpaloalto.org
Subject: April 3 Agenda Item 12, Adoption of a Park Dedication Ordinance to Dedicate the 10- acre Measure E Site as Parkland - Support for PRC Recommendation
Dear Mayor Kou and Members of the City Council,
The Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter works to ensure sustainable land use while protecting wetlands, open space, wildlife habitat, and other ecological and natural resources in the Bay Area. Our Bay Alive Campaign advocates locally and regionally to preserve and enhance Bayland ecosystems and build community resilience to sea level rise. We appreciate the City of Palo Alto’s enduring dedication and leadership in preserving and enhancing natural open space for the benefit of current and future generations.
We write today to urge you to support the Parks and Recreation Commission’s recommendation to rededicate the 10-acre Measure E site as parkland.
Natural open space and thriving ecosystems at Byxbee Park are at the heart of Palo Alto’s Baylands Master Plan
Dedicated as parkland almost 60 years ago, the promised transformation of Byxbee Park from a landfill to natural open space has been awaited by Palo Altans for two generations. In fact, that goal was “one of the core reasons for embarking on an integrated master plan for the Baylands.”1
This was not a passing fancy. For decades since, the policies and guidance of Palo Alto’s Baylands Master Plan (BMP) have been repeatedly affirmed throughout the City’s planning documents, including the City’s current Comprehensive Plan.3 Importantly, in the years since the original BMP, the City’s conception of natural open space and its value to the community has evolved well beyond just preserving acreage or providing recreation opportunities. Comprehensive Plan Policy N-1.1 calls for preservation, protection, and enhancement of “open space and ecosystems of Palo Alto from the foothills to the Baylands” and explicitly respects the role that natural and landscaped areas play in a “resilient ecological continuum.”4 For the Baylands specifically, Comprehensive Plan Policy N-1.5 calls for preserving and protecting open space as “functioning habitats, and elements of a larger interconnected wildlife corridor.”5
We’ve lost critical time to restore the important lowland wildlife corridor at the Measure E site
The flat portion of the Measure E site (about one-third of the 10-acre site) comprises the only undeveloped lowlands that can be planted and restored to provide a vital habitat link between the Bay and the Emily Renzel Marsh and Wetlands. The trees and vegetation on the flatlands screen the wastewater plant and provide important resources for birds and wildlife. The hillside portion of the site cannot sustain deep-rooted vegetation due to state regulations to protect the cap of the landfill.
However, thriving habitat and wildlife corridors require time to establish. Eleven years of delay have degraded the landscape and habitat. We have lost precious time and opportunity to restore habitat and enhance biodiversity. We have also lost opportunities to consider and plan the integration of the site in the Comprehensive Conservation Plan for the Baylands, to build resilience of Bayland ecosystems in the face of climate change. We have lost critical time, savings, and grant opportunities by failing to invest sooner in restoration of this valuable open space.
Feasible organic waste solutions have failed to materialize
After an extensive process of evaluating bid proposals, City staff concluded that the energy/compost facility that prompted Measure E was prohibitively expensive. In December 2014, City Council directed staff not to pursue the project further. Meanwhile, the City has implemented solutions to the most urgent issues raised in Measure E, food and yard trimmings are now processed with economy of scale in a waste-to-energy facility in San Jose and incineration was replaced with dewatering. Two trucks per day convey the remaining biosolids to the Central Valley.
The City again evaluated alternatives for processing biosolids onsite (including pyrolysis) in a 2019 update6 to the City’s Biosolids Facility Plan. Again, staff concluded that the alternatives fell short so the current solutions offer the best benefit/cost ratio.
Stay true to voter expectations
The 2011 Measure E Initiative sharply divided Palo Alto’s environmental community. Although no environmental review or feasibility study had been completed, Measure E proponents asked voters to trust the vision for an energy/compost facility in that the benefits would be sufficiently high to justify relinquishing parkland that had been fiercely protected for almost 50 years. The Measure E language explicitly allowing rededication as parkland in 10 years (if the waste facility had not yet panned out) was key to garnering the votes of people who supported the idea of the imagined project, but did NOT want the land to be banked indefinitely for uncertain future industrial development.
Now that nearly 12 years have passed without a feasible project, calls to indefinitely extend the parkland carve-out feel to many to be a breach of trust regarding Measure E. Voters understood Measure E to be a time-limited test run for a specific, promising solution. It is clear to opponents and proponents alike that there is still no near-term opportunity to realize the Measure E vision. That doesn’t make it a bad vision, but while we wait for its time to come, Council mustn’t continue to handicap the ecological benefits that the Measure E lowlands can provide. Council also should not risk creating a bait-and-switch mentality that could turn the community against any future project that may require a vote of the people.
The City should stay true to voter expectations by now returning the 10 acres to parkland and investing in habitat restoration on the site. If a beneficial enviro-tech solution becomes feasible and appropriate for the site in the future, the City can return to the voters with a specific project; Palo Altans have already proven they will rise to the challenge.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide these comments.
Sincerely,
James Eggers
Executive Director
Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter
Jennifer Chang Hetterly
Campaign Lead, Bay Alive
Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter
1 Baylands Master Plan p. 68
2 Baylands Master Plan p. 88
3 Comprehensive Plan 2030, Policy N-1.5 explicitly incorporates the Baylands Master Plan, as periodically amended, by reference.
4 Comprehensive Plan 2030, Policy N-1.1, p. 110
5 Comprehensive Plan 2030, Policy N-1.5, p. 111
6 Regional Water Quality Control Plant Biosolids Facilities Plan Update, October 2019. See Table ES-4, Overall Comparison of Long Term Biosolids Management Options