St. Mark’s original property was quite a bit larger than it is now. In 1993, the church decided to do a remodel and sell off some of their land to fund that remodel. The land they sold was the original parking lot. The records indicate the church hoped to use this land for low-income housing, or housing for seniors. When this plan was blocked by neighbors and/or the city, the church instead sold the land to a developer who built 14 homes on it and created the current residential street, Gaspar Court. The church kept one of the homes, and the builder also built the new Rectory on the church property.
This story sounds simple, but of course it was not. There were many twists and turns to the story. The 1993 remodel was a dramatic change for the church both physically and emotionally…it was a remodel that was not by any means completely supported by many in the congregation. Change is always hard.
love the history!!
p.s. street names must now be vetted by the city; a developer can’t name them.
Those three places for bicycle parking (in the corner of the Sunday School classroom) were required by code, but never built (as far as I know).
I was sad, but not surprised to see that the neighbors objected to low income/senior housing at”St. Mark’s Court” so a missed opportunity there for St. Mark’s to lead the way in merciful land use. I’m following the new low income development at Mitchell Park being built by Eden Housing. And I worked with my neighbors here in Ventura to iron out some wrinkles in the new low income housing here in Ventura. Height, density and massing are concerns for people in single family neighborhoods. But we worked it out over here and it looks like Eden Housing will be able to overcome some resistance to HDM at the park. I’m all for relaxing our “building code” to accommodate housing for our most vulnerable. Thank you for bringing this story to my attention. I’m interested in land-use and how to make room for all levels of income in Palo Alto. Had no idea that SME tried to get the ball rolling thirty years ago.
I remember the big date palms in the old parking lot in the 70s. It was also where I learned to drive a manual transmission (Dad knew it was a safe area away from traffic at times when it wasn’t in use).