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The Palo Alto City Council moved Monday to curtail its most promising — and unpredictable — zoning tool when it voted to keep “planned home” projects out of single-family neighborhoods.
In doing so, the council brought some relief to College Terrace residents who have opposed a recent plan from Cato Investments to construct a three-story building with 24 apartments at 2239 and 2241 Wellesley St. But its decision also disappointed housing advocates who argued at the hearing that prohibiting planned-home projects in single-family zones would hinder the city’s progress on housing.
For the council, which has consistently failed to meet its own goals for housing production, the planned-home zone — which allows residential builders to barter with the city over development standards — is the ultimate wild card. By providing builders flexibility on development standards such as height, density and parking requirements, it invites housing proposals that exceed code. The council has already held informal “pre-screening” sessions for three such proposals and it has three other proposals in the pipeline, awaiting reviews.
The success is, however, mixed at best. None of the three projects has so far advanced. While the council offered largely favorable feedback to a mixed-use development at 2951 El Camino Real, which includes 113 apartments, the other two planned-home proposals didn’t fare as well. One, a project from Sand Hill Property Company that included 187 apartments and a two-story office building at 3300 El Camino Real, has already been withdrawn. The other one, a 290-apartment complex pitched by Jeff Farrar for 3997 Fabian Way, remains on shaky ground after council members suggested in February that it’s too tall and dense for the commercial site.
In the community, the planned home zone has emerged as a hot topic, with supporters focusing on the flexibility it creates for housing projects and detractors highlighting the unpredictability that it generates for the neighborhoods where these projects would go up.
The council majority sided with the latter and voted 5-2, with Alison Cormack and Greg Tanaka dissenting, to narrow the parameters for planned home zones. Among the most significant changes that the council made on Monday was specifying that planned-home projects will only be allowed in areas that are already zoned for commercial and high-density residential use. The council then drove the point home further by explicitly stating that such projects will not be allowed in R-1 and R-2 zones, a determination that effectively dooms the Cato proposal.
Let by Vice Mayor Pat Burt, the council also staked out on Monday broader positions on citywide housing policies, including a desire to steer dense housing projects away from industrial zones and from land east of U.S. Highway 101, an area deemed vulnerable to sea-level rise. While it did not explicitly ban such projects, it directed its newly created Housing Element Working Group to review potential restrictions in these areas.
Burt and others in the council majority also agreed that to make housing construction more attractive, they have to make office construction less so. Burt suggested lowering the allowed density for office projects, thus making commercial projects less lucrative and creating incentives for developers to construct housing. He pointed to California Avenue, where the city has recently created a “housing incentive program” that gives residential developers density bonuses. Despite this action, there still hadn’t been any takers. Burt surmised that this is because commercial projects — which have the same density limits as housing projects in the new program — remain far more profitable than residential ones.
He suggested adjusting the underlying density limits for office zoning downward to make housing “adequately attractive.”
“I don’t see any circumstances that we’ll see residential in the California Avenue area under this (current) formula,” Burt said.
Several council members, including Burt and Mayor Tom DuBois, pointed out that the city already allows more than one housing unit per lot in R-1 zones, a function of recent state and local efforts to loosen laws surrounding accessory dwelling units. Dubois also alluded to the recent division in College Terrace over the Cato project, with supporters putting up multiple posters of former President Donald Trump — and one of the McCloskey couple, guns blazing — on poles in the neighborhood.
“I don’t think these tactics are really helpful and I think what we’re trying to do tonight is focus on some problem solving,” DuBois said.
DuBois criticized the planned-home zone for being too “wide open.” Under the rules that the council approved in February 2020, it applies only to residential and mixed-use projects that devote at least 20% of their units to affordable housing and that generate at least as many residences as jobs. Up until Monday, however, the rules did not prohibit planned-home projects in single-family zones.
Those who opposed the city’s moves to narrow the parameters of the new zone suggested that doing so will deprive the city of promising housing opportunities at a time when the city is struggling to increase its housing stock. Between 2016 and 2019, the city hadn’t approved a single new housing unit for the “very low” income category. In the current housing cycle, which stretches from 2015 to 2023, it has approved 101 such units, which is 15% of its RHNA allocation of 691. In the “low” income category, the city has approved 65 units — 15% of its allocation of 432. And it has only approved 28 units in the “moderate” category, just 10% of its allocation.
Cynthia Gildea, a representative from Cato Investments, pointed to the city’s recent failures and suggested that limiting R-1 zones exclusively to single-family homes “doubles down” on the exclusionary history surrounding the zoning designation. Why, she asked, is the Wellesley project so scary that it justifies banning multifamily and “missing middle” housing from being built in neighborhoods throughout Palo Alto? The move, she argued in a letter, “amounts to changing the rules in the middle of the game.”
“While the City Council continues to pay lip service to the housing crisis, this action sends the message to housing developers that Palo Alto is not a place to build,” Gildea wrote.
The nonprofit group Palo Alto Forward similarly criticized the prohibition on using the planned home zone on R-1 lots, calling it “wrongheaded and inappropriate.”
“The PHZ never mentioned exemptions for single family lots and by changing this policy midstream to meet the requests of one neighborhood, the City Council will demonstrate a bad faith effort that blocks new, affordable housing,” Palo Alto Forward President Gail Price wrote in a letter to the council. “Further, by limiting the ability to use this important tool across the city, Palo Alto will make it impossible to equitably zone for new housing in every neighborhood.”
But the council majority agreed that “planned home” zoning was never intended for single-family neighborhoods. Rather, it was introduced last year to supplement the housing incentive program and to remove barriers for residential developers who need a few additional feet of height or a slight reduction in parking requirements to make the projects pencil out.
Council member Eric Filseth said he was surprised to see the planned-home zoning get conflated with questions about R-1 neighborhoods. The idea of making major changes to R-1 zones, which make up 70% of the city, did not cross his mind last year, when the council voted to allow the use of the new zoning tool, Filseth said.
Numerous residents argued Monday that while planned-home projects may be appropriate in some parts of the city, they should not be considered in R-1 neighborhoods. College Terrace resident Anna Lembke was among them.
“This is not about NIMBY. This is about making sure that we still have backyards in College Terrace 20 years from now,” said Lembke, who lives near the site of Cato’s proposed development. “This is also not about structural racism. This is really about preserving the integrity of walkable neighborhoods.”
The council’s decision to narrow the parameters of the planned-home zone is expected to curtail the number of applications that the city receives under this designation. Even projects that the council has supported, including 2951 El Camino Real, would be banned under the new rules (while that project is largely on commercial land, a small part of it intrudes on two R-1 zones on Olive Avenue). The only reason that project is still viable is because the council agreed to exempt the projects that have already gone through a pre-screening.
Cormack and Tanaka both dissented and suggested that the city should not be taking away its own discretion to review housing projects.
“Each of these sites is unique,” Cormack said. “Every time we limit ourselves a degree of freedom, we may be foreclosing an option we may not even be aware of.”
Cormack, Tanaka and Filseth also voted against Burt’s proposal to explore a host of other long-term policies pertaining to housing, including adjustments to floor-area-ratio limits for commercial projects. While his colleagues pointed to the city’s famously high jobs-to-housing ratio as a reason to support a shift away from commercial development and toward residential, Tanaka argued that jobs are inherently good.
“I don’t think we’ve had a thorough discussion on that and I think it’s premature to make jobs the bogeyman right now, especially when people are looking for jobs,” Tanaka said.
The reason why housing prices continue to climb in Palo Alto (and the Bay Area) is because the number of new jobs has grown much faster than the number of new housing units. That’s it, full stop.
In the last 20 years, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Palantir, Tesla and many other companies have added hundreds of thousands of additional jobs combined locally and housing has not been able to keep up. In part because its twice as profitable for developers per square foot as residential so there is very little incentive for developers to do so. In downtown Palo Alto it was about a 10 to 1 ratio of new office buildings to apartment buildings, even though downtown is a great location for apartment buildings and very walkable.
Until we address the root cause, local jobs expansion, the problem will continue to worsen.
Of course the two council members who favor business over residents (McCormack & Tanaka) want to upzone R-1 to support further business growth at the expense of family home owners.
Thank you Council for your discussion and vote. There is room for large projects in PA but NOT in R-1 zones. When I look at all the vacant land in Fremont, Union City, Newark maybe PA makes an agreement with “land rich” cities to build denser.
But we will never catch up if the new number of jobs keeps soaring. Apple, Google, Facebook should be required to provide housing for their own employees. 20,000 new Google jobs in SJ and 1,000 apts. Does not add up; never has/ never will.
Please don’t destroy what makes PA attractive and unique. Thank you.
It says here that R-1 makes up 70% of the city. I believe what is met is it makes up 70% of our residential housing, not of all city land. The 70% is according to the Dir. of Planning.
I have heard Open Space and parks comprise 46% of city land?
What isn’t correct is the 87% R1 housing figure that PA Forward asserts and was repeatedly echoed by its followers last night in their comments to Council.
Will PA Forward now issue a prompt correction to its followers? Knowing of less R1 would surely be a solace given how upsetting it is to them.
I was disappointed that Council didn’t take housing east of 101 completely off the table (there is none now). With sea and ground water rise, and keeping our bayland area as free from more development as possible, this seems a no brainer.
California Catalysts says the job “YIMBY Field Organizer” pays $70,000/year. Pro’s at work last night, but it’s an uphill battle because PHZ never intended for R1. Even Cato Investments knew that.
I believe councils intention was to exclude R-1 and the low density zones, which are R-2, R-E and RMD from PHZ applications but to allow it in multi family zones, which are RM-20, RM-30 and RM-40, and commercial zones.
In the motion the only exclude PHZs in R-1 and 2 of the three Low density residential zones R-2 and R-E, which is an error i think. Hopefully someone will catch this!
Articles in the papers this weekend were pointing to North San Jose and Santa Clara as the place where new housing is going to go. There is available land out there next to transit – directly next to transit.
Palo Alto is built out. We are done with exception to new builds on open land like the new Orchard Neighborhood. There is open land that is available in this county.
Quit with the shredding of the hankies about housing in PA. Housing is going up if you get in your car and go look around – New buildings on San Antonio, ECR near San Antonio, Park section coming up – FRY’s. There are projects in place that are waiting to start.
The Progressive wing that feels the need to overload any one city needs redirection. And the PACC members who provide access to those who are centered on this city as a salve for the housing “crises” need to vote them down.
The progressive wing is responding to the Weiner group and look what they have accomplished in SF – total mayhem.
Corrections
Felix: R-1 is 87% of land zoned RESIDENTIAL.
Resident: Palo Alto created the jobs housing imbalance on its own. It can’t then shirk its housing responsibility by telling other cities: We are first. You STOP creating jobs and build only housing.
Just like Palo Alto lost on Foothills Park, it is setting itself up for a big loss on the housing issue. Hopefully, the city fathers and mothers will wake up in time. Palo Alto is outnumbered on this issue, and is being called out regionally and nationally for its irresponsibility.
I very much appreciate the corrections and reminders offered by the mayor and vice mayor last night. R1 can already be developed more densely than PAF and others such as the CATO spokesperson are so fond of saying. And the 87% number is bogus. Progress on this issue is more likely if the discussion is credible and based on fact rather than fiction.
As for the “what’s so scary about affordable housing” question that has been asserted regarding the CATO proposal for College Terrace, that is also bogus. College Terrace is a diverse neighborhood that is one of the more affordable neighborhoods in Palo Alto. It is also more densely built out than other parts of the city. Objection to the CATO project had nothing whatsoever to do with who might live in the apartments. I have lived in CT for 4 decades and cannot imagine this neighborhood not welcoming someone because that person happens to live in affordable housing; the inferred accusation is absurd. And offensive. The widespread objections to the CATO proposal were to the particulars of the project which is simply inappropriate for the location.
Actually, the Comprehensive Plan state In the Housing Element page 1 states that the city is “approximately 26 Square miles, one third is open space..”
so the claim that 87% percent of the city is R-1 is absurd.
I acknowledge all the housing needs, BMR, transit issues, BUT no one is talking about how the new residents will get their water. We are currently at approx. 24 – 26% of normal rainfall with little rainfall in sight. Our reservoirs are about the same. Water is essential for human existence (not finding a residence close by). The last three droughts were increasingly more severe and took years to recover. How can you justify building more and more when you can’t provide water for those coming in?
Sounds like the developers and their supporters are looking to get rich and then buy their water from other sources.
PS. We did have water contracts with other states and communities. They all backed out and we received no water during the drought.
What a relief to know that our current City Council is looking out for people who already live here! I echo Resident 1; Palo Alto is built out. It’s unreasonable to expect us to pack ourselves in like sardines to keep up with businesses that like having that prestige, sounds like the heart of Silicon Valley, Palo Alto address. And right on their heels are the developers who have stoutly resisted increasing BMR numbers in their projected developments.
And I am also not thrilled about the greedy owners of Town & Country who now want medical offices to replace needed retail. They were more than happy to gouge the existing businesses there when they bought the center. Lots of people took a hit from COVID-19. Why should they be subsidized by replacing some lost tenants with medical offices? Those retail outlets may well be replaced with good retail stores after shopping returns to normalcy?
Indeed it’s a relief to have a City Council majority that’s pushing back against the pro-densificatio pro-gentrification lobby that hypocritically claims “density” will “cure” racism” and make housing more “affordable” when in fact it does exactly the opposite.
We currently have a 20:1 office space vs housing ratio which is no surprise since offices are at least twice as profitable as market rate housing. Meanwhile Google continues to create new office complexes that will add 20,000 new jobs/commuters but only 1,000 “affordable” housing units with is really just another name for “workforce housing” aka market rate housing for well-paid techies who can easily qualify for mortgages.
Instead of making housing more affordable, office complexes like increase competition for housing 29:1 AND displace minority /ethnic neighborhoods.
Re Town & Country, so glad that most of the new CC is pushing back on the landlord’s absurd claim that people will shop MORE after their painful medical appointments and sweaty workouts to make up for the city’s lost sales tax revenue.
Thank you city council. We need to continue to fight against the loud voices that promote growth and density over the environment and quality of life.
There is not enough water to continue to add to the population of the bay area. The air is dirty, roads are clogged even now with fewer people driving due to the slow return from Covid. The city has not added park space per the comprehensive plan as required but has continued to allow the population of the city to increase.
Citizens of California need to contact their state representative and state senators and tell them not to vote for the bills that are removing local control of density and zoning and allowing developers to put high-rise developments where ever they want to. (Check out SB 9 and SB10). Developers are buying our state government and our quality of life is suffering with the increase population growth, development and worsening pollution and overcrowding.
What’s missing from the development analysis is current information on water supply. The City is mandated to update its urban water management plan. Will the newly formed housing element committee be advised to take water supply into consideration and have updated information? Growing the population and augmenting our built environment needs to be done responsibly. We need to know how much growth we can sustain b/c if we aren’t mindful of our resources we could easily make our problems worse than they are now. I get that we need more housing, but let’s not pretend we’ve got the same level of buildable land and natural resources that existed when Pat Brown was governor. Or that climate change isn’t giving us hideous weather disasters to deal with every year. As unwelcome as this may be, I think we may have accelerated development to the point that we must now choose between commercial growth and residential growth and hold ourselves to a conservative limit either way.
Put accurately, 87% of residentially-zoned lots are designated R-1. This is higher than in other cities. For example, I own a SFH in San Francisco which I rent to tenants. There is only one home on my lot, but it is zoned R-2, just like all of the SFHs in the neighborhood (Noe Valley).
Truthfully, many cities have mostly R-2 zoned lots because as a rule R-2 lots are far more valuable than R-1 lots due to the flexibility that these lots allow. Here in Palo Alto, there are many Single Family Homes on R-2 lots similar to mine in San Francisco (except a lot more valuable!) and often residents are not aware that their lots are R-2 because they always have been used for one home alone. Changing zoning from R-1 to R-2, R-3, or R-4 does not and cannot automatically transform lots with a SFH into lots with duplexes, triplexes or quad-plexes! Rather, the property owner has the right to choose how to use their lot. In many cases, they will choose to have a large house with a big yard, rather than to maximize density as allowed by zoning, which would result in smaller yards and more sharing.
I think a possibly bigger problem is the corporate ownership of Palo Alto. The vast majority of Palo Alto land – as much as 80% of non-open space — is owned and controlled by corporations, which leads to issues. Because Prop 13 has allowed corporate owners to escape reassessment of their properties since 1975 (when corp-owned properties change hands, usually just the owners of the corporation change so the owner of the land stays the same), the fact that so much of our extremely valuable land is corporate-owned has deprived the general fund of billions of dollars in property tax. If corp owners paid taxes like residential owners do, the city could reclaim corporate land for housing. We have more than enough land here — it’s allocated wrong.
Finally, ghost houses create a problem. If ghost houses were regulated as they are elsewhere, empty homes could be reclaimed for housing!
Sorry – comparison to San Francisco housing zones has nothing to do with Palo Alto. SF – the city was built from the gold rush up and has a tangled history on housing. SF is a major city with a large tax base. Palo Alto is a Suburban city. Different housing goals – a lot related to family life and schools with the traditional goals for family life. We are not going to look like SF. And SF today is going down the tubes for every aspect of living.- especially family life and schools. If you want a SF city then go live there – do not try and convert every suburban city into a major city housing complex. Every location has a role to play but not the same role – it is called diversity – diversity goes both ways. Anyone can play the diversity card.
A number of confusing issues here. Rebecca says she owns a house(s) in SF but does not choose to live there. Why not? She has a family and children which changes up how and where you live. If that makes sense then why trying to change the place you moved to into the one you left behind? We all recognize why we live where we do and make those choices. Why are people compelled to then try and change the new location into the one they left behind? And then lecture everyone as though they are unaware of why they chose to live where they do. A house is a major investment for people – all people.
And worse the SJM/BAN in today’s paper provides a half baked article which is misleading – “Apartment proposal derailed by council” = Alex Toledo. We can thank him for some misleading articles on FHP. We get to read the misleading statements and opinions from the Cato group -Cynthia Gildea; Angie Evans PAF; and social activist Aram James who expresses the opinion that housing is racial. That is the canned speech we keep hearing which has no basis in fact. Keep up with the canned speeches and threats. Does James own a home? If all of the people who issue threats actually own homes then we an assume that they are paid to run to the papers with their opinions and get their names in papers. Why do the PAF people think their opinions are more relevent then the opinions of the residents who are putting their children through school here? And why Palo Alto? There are choices all over this state. If you want chaos then go live in SF. We all get to make those choices. And Mr. James is just pushing the current opinion which has no basis in fact.
Note that Mr. Aram James appears in the noted article and his job is the Santa Clara County Assistant Public Defender. I would make the case that his printed opinions are inconsistent with his law degree and position in the county. Any legal position he provides will be based on canned speeches. He has already prejudiced any case he participates in.
A larger percentage of Palo Alto land is owned by businesses than the percentage of San Francisco land that is owned by businesses.
I think that people need to realize that calling a city a suburb does not make it so. 80% of our property owners are corporations that pay very little taxes. That is not a suburb. It is a city that has been misled greatly.
I agree with Rebecca. Almost half of our Palo Alto homes are rental properties.
These homes are owned by large corporations, overseas investor LLCs, and
real estate investment groups. They commonly buy a property and sell units to investors while taking responsibility for the administration and maintenance of the property.
The city council should start thinking about taxing these corporate property owners!
Eileen’s post reminds me that big cities like New York City and Vancouver, CA, are also considering implementing a “concierge tax” for all the ghost houses/ ghost apartments purchased strictly for investment purposes and often never even seen by the investors, often foreigners, seeking safe havens for their cash.
The city should indeed start taxing these property owners as well finally implementing a business tax, esp. since the big companies continue to create new jobs at the rate of 20:1 for each new housing unit.
I have made it a point to visit every Neighborhood listed in the PA Neighborhood book. Every neighborhood is filled with homes with families with children that are going to our schools, playing on teams, participating in school activities. My block has a high percentage of Asian people who want their children to go to our schools so they can then fit into the college of their choice. If they own or rent is irrelevant – the overall goals are the same. This is a city of families and homes. There is no major shipping port, major airport, major manufacturing. There is no major auto assembly line. We are lucky to have a golf course and playing fields for the community enjoyment. That is a suburb. San Francisco is a City. No matter who owns the land the end result defines the classification of a city.
Once again inclusive housing is kicked to the curbside. Q: When referring to CalAve for housing, where? There is lots I can see for such a build. BTW what looks good and attractive on the outside can be to cheap schlock jobs on the inside. Our council make up is the opposite of the Paris Pompadu : CC is all pretty daisies on the outside and ugly doing on the inside. This reality oozes out w every bad anti housing decision they make from behind their Zoom screens pretending a public service dias.
There are apartment buildings all over this city. Get in your car and go look. The apartments are grouped in sections throughout the city. If that is a persons definition of inclusive housing then it is all over the place. If you want to live in an apartment house then it is there. Go look. tired of people working in a make or break mind set. Every city has houses, every city has apartments. And every city puts them in logical locations the same as every other city.
My neighborhood enables kids to play outside, has no traffic noise and is full of people from Stanford who basically cannot afford non-campus homes. Adding high density building units might not solve the housing problems as seen by what has happened to such units in SF. Furthermore it makes neighborhoods lose their character and why some people are willing to pay more to live here. If Palo Alto wants, it should be investing in supporting neighboring cities recover areas that are very degraded by creating better living conditions. Adding high cost units in traditional neighborhoods does not achieve that…. Berkeley used to be an epicenter of great living and disastrous housing policies have led it to a mix of high gentrification and low cost apartment slums – with most traditional residents now regretting all their choices in the past.
We have to look at what a family home should look like. Families need a certain amount of space both inside and outside. With the trend to spending more time working from home not likely to disappear entirely, space is now more necessary for congenial family life more than ever and likely to continue for some time to come.
Some of these comments come across as anti-family. Keep our family neighborhoods the way they are.
You have to look at who is pushing for change. The Cato Institute policies can be reviewed in Wikipedia. They are dedicated to pushing for change as a policy, regardless of the end result which in the case of College Terrace would be counter-productive. They have an opinion as to what is suppose to be going on. The taxpayers have an opinion as to what their neighborhood is suppose to look like. The people who live there have expressed their opinions.
I don’t understand the following logic this — “I got a job in Palo Alto so therefore I have a right to live in Palo Alto in housing that I can afford.”
It’s a silly and naive sense of entitlement. The only exception that I could maybe agree with is public servants such as teachers, firemen and such.
Palo Alto is a great town, but there simply isn’t room for everyone who wants to live here. It took me 10 years of commuting from Fremont, working my butt off and saving before I could even buy a crappy little house and lot to fix up over the ensuing 20 years.
“I don’t understand the following logic this — “I got a job in Palo Alto so therefore I have a right to live in Palo Alto in housing that I can afford.”
There is no logic. Like no one ever changes jobs in Silicon Valley??! Like the creation of 20 jobs to 1 housing unit’s going to increase affordability! Like the poor under-paid gig workers are ever going to afford a down payment!
Sure, give everyone a $3,000,000 house. Give me a Hawaiian island just like Larry Ellison’s and an $80,000,000 mansion so I can tear it down because I feel like it. And a Pacific Heights townhouse so I can hobnob with the Getty’s while funding the YIMBY party and moving out of PA when they demand a raise! It keeps them off my back and onto yours!
Right on! Oh, don’t forget I want a pony, too, and a stable and land…
What makes a house a home? Good Neighbor? Community involvement/volunteerism? Family? Nice stuff? A yard? Ownership? Wealth? The realtors are scamming a nonsense concept that cloaked in “charm & character” that has zero to do with what a house provides people that reside under its roof. PA is loosing the social context of family and community at every click of their mouse and sent email file. Please. Throw up the real gates like the “no outlet” quaint dead-end streets in CTerrace and Old PA. Call a spade what it is: a spade. Check your income at the door and get-out. Yuck.
The Palo Alto Weekly that came out this week is a Real Estate Extravaganza. What is great that they have all of the apartment projects that are currently approved and in-process. When you see everything it makes you feel good that a lot is happening. They all look good.
Then they discuss the College Terrace Cato project and show a picture of that. Worst architecture ever. Glad they did not approve that.
Between the papers there are two College Terrace heritage houses for sale that are all fixed up – they look great – and not cheap.
The bottom line is that the cost of a house is huge – a really big investment. In this city from end to end do not let the PAF’s/others dig into neighborhoods and ruin them.
Barron Park when you drive in has some really big, new houses. Their location is a bit rural with a stream and big park at the back. Put some new restaurants on ECR and you have some real gold there.
Drive around EPA – what you see is a traditional city set-up with single family homes grouped in a standard city-block set-up, and apartments in the area of University and major street areas – Bay Street. They have signage on the residential streets concerning no parking on street cleaner day. They have a standard city set-up – like every other city. That is the way it is done. Are you going to put a four-plex in the middle of a block to indicate racial equality? Get real everyone. A standard city set-up is the same all over. Who ever thought that up has a problem in their own head – but we already know that.