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Stanford Offers $4.7 Billion for California Housing, Transit about:reader?url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-24/...

bloomberg.com

Stanford Offers $4.7 Billion for


California Housing, Transit
By Lily Katz and Noah Buhayar
3-4 minutes

Stanford University campus in Palo Alto California.

Photographer: Hans Blossey/Alamy

Photographer: Hans Blossey/Alamy

Stanford University is offering to spend $4.7 billion to relieve


pressures on housing and transit that are plaguing residents of
California’s Bay Area.

The offer would be part of an agreement with Santa Clara County to


support the school’s application for a long-term land use permit,
according to a statement Monday from Stanford. It would invest
$3.4 billion in housing development and more than $1.1 billion in
transportation upgrades and “other community benefits,” according
to the statement.

Stanford, which is planning a significant expansion, has been


embroiled in a dispute with local officials over whether it is offering
sufficient affordable housing. The plan calls for 2,172 workforce
housing units, including 575 “front-loaded below-market-rate
housing units.”

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Stanford Offers $4.7 Billion for California Housing, Transit about:reader?url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-24/...

“This offer clearly exceeds what can be achieved through the


county’s current approach and includes billions of dollars in housing
and traffic relief that Stanford wants to provide and our neighbors
are asking for,” Stanford representative E.J. Miranda said in an
emailed statement.

The university, which has a $26.5 billion endowment, did not specify
the time span of the investment proposed Monday.

Stanford submitted the proposal earlier in the day to Santa Clara


County, where the university is located. A spokeswoman for the
county didn’t immediately have a comment on Stanford’s offer.

The success of Silicon Valley technology companies -- many of


them started by Stanford grads -- has contributed to massive
housing cost increases in the San Francisco Bay Area. The firms
employ tens of thousands of high-earners who have bought or
rented homes, leaving fewer options for poor and middle-income
residents. Meanwhile, the supply of new houses and apartments
has not kept up with demand.

That’s driven median existing-home prices to $1.2 million in Silicon


Valley, the highest of any market in the country, according to the
National Association of Realtors. The San Francisco and Oakland
metro area is second with a $930,000 median price.

Increasingly, tech companies and their executives have been taking


steps to directly address a crisis they’re often blamed for creating.
Last week, Google pledged $1 billion to support the construction of
20,000 new homes in the area. The philanthropy started by
Facebook Inc.’s Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan is also
backing an effort to address the housing shortage in the region.

(Updates to add university’s comment and scription of endowment


from fourth paragraph.)

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