Stanford urged to halt faculty housing plan amid fire risk

Residents oppose project after fire marshal calls site ‘dangerous’

PORTOLA VALLEY >> Town residents are demanding that Stanford University withdraw its proposal to build a housing development for faculty members that fire officials have deemed a massive wildfire risk, threatening dozens of nearby homes.

The proposed housing would be built about 3 miles from campus on Alpine Road and would consist of 27 for-sale single-family homes for university faculty and 12 affordable rental units for Portola Valley’s workforce on a 6-acre parcel of undeveloped land choked with dry vegetation and brush.

The Woodside Fire District said in a letter to the university in September that “even with regular fuel reduction attempts, the physical vegetative nature and steep topographical properties of the large remaining undeveloped portion of the parcel” would bring “significant increased risk” of large fires developing quickly.

The letter went on to say that these

“high fire risk characteristics pose a risk to any existing structures on the west, north and east ridges,” such as residential developments abutting Minoca Road, Pine Ridge Way and Westridge Drive as well as any new structures built by Stanford.

Woodside Fire Marshal Don Bullard said the area poses a significant risk of fire because it faces south, an area of the hill that gets the most sun and heat and where fuels dry out the fastest.

“We know the property is dangerous as it sits now,” Bullard said. “So anytime you bring more people, more activity, more utilities, electricity, cars, anything, you increase the potential for an ignition to occur. If that happens on land that is not treated, people surrounding the property are in increased danger.”

Stanford said in a statement that it is committed to maintaining the safety of Portola Valley and will “responsibly address traffic congestion and mobility, access to trails, community character and other issues important to Portola Valley residents.”

Stanford said it is taking several steps to manage current and future fire issues, including meeting regularly with Woodside Fire on concerns raised by the district and area residents.

The project is in a state of limbo as the draft environmental impact report has only recently begun, and Stanford is expected to learn more from independent professionals hired by the town who will be studying the wildfire risk.

But about 300 Portola Valley residents are asking the university to halt its plans to the develop the area. They are demanding that the town council “compel Stanford to address and satisfy the Fire District’s concerns and requirements” or pull the proposal altogether.

In addition to hundreds of others, four letters addressed to the Town of Portola Valley and to Stanford have been signed by dozens of people who live adjacent to the proposed development site or within a mile — like Rusty Day, who was instrumental in writing the letters and getting his neighbors to sign them.

Day, who called the plan “reckless” and “mind-boggling,” said in an interview that residents are finally waking up to the potential fire risk on the site, without the help of the university or the town.

“The thing that got everyone’s attention right away was understanding the Fire District had raised these concerns with the town

“The Fire District had raised these concerns with the town and Stanford, but neither publicized that fact.” — Rusty Day, resident

and Stanford, but neither publicized that fact,” Day said. “Residents didn’t discover this until months after this project was submitted and pushed through the process.”

Mary Hufty, who along with other residents started the Portola Valley Neighbors United LLC, which is opposing the Stanford expansion, said she and her group have “enjoyed the support of everyone we’ve

talked to.”

She said this kind of door-to-door organizing against a project like this hasn’t happened since she has lived in the town.

“It’s a rare thing,” Hufty said. “Frequently we find ourselves with our jaw dropped in the town council once it’s too late. This has been a labor of love since the beginning of January.”

Portola Valley Vice Mayor Maryann Derwin said the council “cannot intervene on behalf of those opposing a project and pull an application.” She said there is

“no way the town would approve a building project for which fire danger could not be mitigated,” so the town is asking for three fire modeling studies for the project.

“I know it is hard to be patient with the Stanford proposal since the process takes so long, but please know that in the end, the town will put public safety first,” Derwin said.

“Does this mean that I am less enthusiastic about welcoming a community of Stanford faculty members and their families as well as a dozen renters to our town should everything

work out? Of course not. I guess you could say that I remain cautiously optimistic.”

Stanford said it is bringing mechanized vegetation management tools to the area, placing underground the high-voltage power lines along Alpine Road in front of the proposed development, enhancing water service to the area and hiring an architect with extensive experience designing fire-resistant communities.

Stanford said that it also has sought community input and has hosted four publicly noticed and “wellattended”

open houses before preparing the application submitted to the town, and that it will continue to involve the community.

Bullard said that there still is a chance Stanford could build on Alpine Road and keep fire risks low, but that the initial treatment of the land and ongoing maintenance could be an issue.

Though Stanford said it has brought in mechanized masticating equipment to clear the lower 8 acres of the property and has deployed more than 100 goats to cut down grass on the remaining acreage, Bullard

said the steep terrain could prove difficult for mechanical treatment methods and “more needs to happen in the rest of the parcel than what goats are capable of.”

For Day, the site Stanford has chosen is simply “a bad setting for human habitation.”

“We haven’t learned these lessons after the Camp Fire and Paradise and the other catastrophic fires, going back to the Bel Air Fire in 1961,” Day said. “The lessons of those fires is you don’t put developments like this in this setting. Not in the mouth of a steep canyon.”