40 football fields worth of academic buildings

and enough beds to fill 17 Four Seasons hotels

That’s how the Mercury News article describes the impact of the Stanford General Use Permit (GUP) which was submitted to Santa Clara County for approval.

Open Discussion and Q&A Session
Doria Summa, Planning & Transportation Commission

The Stanford General Use Permit (GUP)

The Stanford General Use Permit (GUP) for the 2018-2035 period has been made available by the County for public comment. The GUP and the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) describes planned growth on the main campus during that period. It will add 2.3 million sq ft of non-residential space to the campus (compared to 2 million sq ft in the 2000-2017 period which is just being completed). It also adds 9,000 housing units. The EIR has a major section on likely transportation impacts. The major section on cumulative traffic impacts to intersections in neighboring communities concludes that “the impacts would remain significant and unavoidable”. The major section on the Project’s local freeway impacts concludes that “the proposed impacts would remain significant and unavoidable”.

These impacts from the main campus at Stanford will be added to the impacts that will be experienced from two other Stanford developments. The 2.3 million sq ft of campus non-residential space added in coming years will be in addition to the 1.3 million sq ft of hospital and medical office space that will come online in the next five years and the 0.8 million sq ft of office space targeted in the Stanford Research Park. That means well over 4 million sq ft of non-residential space can be added on Stanford lands while they admit that traffic impacts are “significant and unavoidable”. And this is at a time when the Annual Citizens Survey in Palo Alto show that two-thirds of residents are already deeply concerned about the level of traffic today.

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