August 7, 2007

Palo Alto: Demolition Derby

Driving around Palo Alto, it seems as if there’s a higher than usual number of “teardowns” or “scrapers” this year, especially in the high-end neighborhoods. To test this hypothesis, I went down to the Palo Alto Planning Department, and asked for a printout of all the demolition permits issued over the last few years. The attendant came back with a foot-high stack of permits, and said, “You can count them.” Here is what I found:

It turns out that about 100 demolition permits a year have been issued since 2005, and there hasn’t been an appreciable increase over the last three years. Though not all of these permits are for the complete removal of a structure, it’s a testimony to the health of the local economy that so many people can afford to completely start over on a new structure. The other economic factors at play are that the land and labor costs here are so high, that in many cases it’s cheaper to start over than to open up an aging structure and try to retrofit it to contemporary electrical, mechanical, and earthquake requirements.