Palo Alto Online<\/a> wrote at the time. Two new homes are being built where the burned one stood, according to the city permitting system.<\/p>\nRequests for comment from Mr. Page, sent to Google officials and the head of his family office, were not acknowledged.<\/p>\n
Marissa Mayer, the former chief executive of Yahoo! who is worth an estimated $1.3 billion, purchased and demolished three town homes in Palo Alto and built a swimming pool and accessory dwelling unit in their place. She is seeking to knock down a fourth town home in order to build a 4,600 square foot home with a \u201cgrand hall,\u201d elevator and large basement, according to plans filed with the city.<\/p>\n
In 2013, she purchased a mortuary just down the street for $11.2 million, and sought to turn it into a private women\u2019s club. The plan did not advance after neighbors fought the proposal.<\/p>\n
The exterior of part of the mortuary features honey bears painted by the San Francisco street artist fnnch. \u201cThe city is aware of occasional events hosted there, which is permitted with a special events permit,\u201d Meghan Horrigan-Taylor, a spokeswoman for the city of Palo Alto, wrote in an email.<\/p>\n
Ms. Mayer did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
Local housing crisis<\/p>\n
Mr. Stone said the mortuary is just one example of property owned by wealthy people that could be put to better use in a region with a severe housing shortage and affordability crisis, calling it \u201cperfect for multifamily housing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unlike Bay Area hillside communities, where compounds have been the norm, Palo Alto has long had denser neighborhoods with single-family homes, condos and a walkable downtown. Replacing several homes with compounds has changed the character of the city and reduced the number of units available for those working nearby.<\/p>\n
Homes in Palo Alto have become incredibly expensive, with the median sales price hovering between $3.5 and $4 million and homes often purchased in cash, well beyond the reach of even the upper-middle-class. While the ultrarich have swelled the city coffers over time, they have also forced more and more workers out of the area.<\/p>\n
Mr. Stone said that he and his wife, who is also a high school teacher, struggled to afford the $2,600 monthly rent on their aging, one-bedroom apartment. Keith Reckdahl, a councilman cosponsoring the legislation with Mr. Stone, said he stretched to buy a home 30 years ago, as an engineer with Lockheed Martin. He said, with a laugh, that he thought at the time he was buying at the top of the market.<\/p>\n
Kirsten Flynn, an interior designer, said she missed the days when Palo Alto was a true college town, featuring thrift shops, artists, musicians playing in the lobby of independent movie houses and a raft of cool bookstores, dive bars and cheap restaurants.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the \u2018groovies\u2019 are fleeing Palo Alto. If they do something groovy, they\u2019re gone,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s heartbreaking. This is my hometown, and it will not be the hometown for any future generations of my family.\u201d<\/p>\n
The proposed legislation would apply to people who buy three or more homes within a radius of 500 feet, roughly the length of a city block. Any construction project expected to last more than 180 days would need a detailed daily schedule of construction work to prove it can be conducted without double-parking vehicles or blocking driveways or bike lanes.<\/p>\n
After finishing one construction project, homeowners would need to wait three years to begin another unless a major emergency occurred. Homes could not be vacant for more than six months in any given year.<\/p>\n
The proposal relies on neighbors for enforcement, leaving it up to another homeowner or tenant living within 500 feet to file a lawsuit.<\/p>\n
The proposal would place new restrictions on private security guards across Palo Alto, not just those serving wealthy homeowners. All security vehicles would have to be marked and permitted by the city. Security guards would have to identify themselves to the public when asked. They would be prohibited from harassing or intimidating passers-by on public property.<\/p>\n
Christopher Elmendorf, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, who specializes in property law, said the proposals are \u201creally unusual\u201d for a city to take up.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the problem of having many people worth more than $10 billion in your city is also unusual, right?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said he thinks that all of the components would pass legal muster, with the possible exception of the requirement that vacant homes be inhabited. An \u201cempty homes tax,\u201d approved by San Francisco voters in 2022, was struck down by a Superior Court judge, but is being appealed by the city.<\/p>\n
The full Palo Alto City Council is likely to take up Mr. Stone\u2019s proposal in January or February. Mr. Stone said he is confident that a majority of the seven-member council, which has taken a keen interest in housing affordability, would support the general framework but could send it to a committee or city staff member for refinement. It could take six months or longer to reach a final vote, he said.<\/p>\n
Michael Kieschnick, whose home is bound on three sides by Mr. Zuckerberg\u2019s properties, supports some of the restrictions, particularly those on private security. But he said it was unrealistic to put enforcement in the hands of neighbors.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the city\u2019s obligation to enforce the law, and it shouldn\u2019t try and pass it off to neighbors,\u201d he said. \u201cWho would sue Mark Zuckerberg?\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Stone said that he wanted to make sure he heard from wealthy residents as well as from their neighbors. On Sept. 5, he and Priscilla Chan sat for an hour outside Blue Bottle Coffee in downtown Palo Alto. She understood why her neighbors were frustrated and was open to his ideas, he said. <\/p>\n
Ms. Chan owns at least 11 homes in Palo Alto. Mr. Stone said he never expected to be in a position to purchase one.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe win the lottery, great,\u201d he said. \u201cBut short of that, I see no chance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Georgia Gee and Kirsten Noyes contributed research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Life might soon become a little more difficult for billionaires in Palo Alto. Known as the birthplace of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166],"tags":[27918,25007,836,25006,816,27920,27866,27922,24261,27921,15328,27919,27917,27923,27924,2106,1159],"class_list":{"0":"post-43744","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-larry-page","8":"tag-chan","9":"tag-high-net-worth-individuals","10":"tag-jobs","11":"tag-larry","12":"tag-larry-page","13":"tag-laurene-powell","14":"tag-law-and-legislation","15":"tag-marissa","16":"tag-mark-e","17":"tag-mayer","18":"tag-page","19":"tag-priscilla","20":"tag-real-estate-and-housing-residential","21":"tag-san-francisco-bay-area-calif","22":"tag-silicon-valley-calif","23":"tag-stanford-university","24":"tag-zuckerberg"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116467929487280948","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}