[Mick]

Is Santa Clara subject to growth restrictions driven by Santa Clara County? When I was there, they had 3,300 undergrads on 80 acres. Today, it's 6,400 undergrads on 106 acres. Stanford has over 8,000 acres. Why such a battle to increase Stanford's student population?

- Stanford has ~7.400 undergrad and ~10,000 grad students, I don't know how many grad students are at SCU.
- the ~8,000 acres includes a lot of land that is not developable (e.g., the land west of Junipero Serra Blvd) at least not under current agreements (and I can imagine the resistance to developing the Dish as student housing) or has other uses (e.g., Stanford Industrial Park, Stanford Shopping Center, Jasper Ridge biological preserve) 
- walking around campus at both LSJU and SCU the Stanford campus seems to have a lot more development and a lot of taller building
- way back when (1979-82) undergrads had three years of guaranteed on-campus housing, now it appears to be all four years, this change has increased the number of undergrad housing units by ~40% (mostly due to going from 3 to 4 years but the undergrad population is also larger now than it was in 1982).  Are all SCU undergrads housed on campus?
- I would guess SCU would be under the jurisdiction of only the City of Santa Clara, for Stanford it is "more complicated"

• 4,017 acres in unincorporated Santa Clara County
  
• 2,700 acres in unincorporated San Mateo County
  
• 1,161 acres in Palo Alto
  
• 114 acres in Woodside
  
• 111 acres in Menlo Park
  
• 76 acres in Portola Valley
  
• 1 acre in Los Altos Hills
  
• 8,180 total acres
  

https://facts.stanford.edu/about/stanford-campus

ADD: Stanford says ~60 of the ~8,180 acres are open space

https://oga.stanford.edu/stanford-lands

see map here

To your questions: 
- SCU had 6,249 undergraduate students and 3,091 graduate students in the 2023/24 year, total = 9,350. The undergrad population grew to 6,577 the next year. The grad student total is about the same as 45 years ago, the undergrad population is nearly double.
- 53% of undergrads lived on campus...92% of frosh, 86% of sophs live on campus. I suspect the remainder live at home.
- As for high-density buildings, there is one 11-story dorm, one five-story dorm, all the rest are three story dorms. SCU owns a few apartment buildings, all two-story.

I realize Stanford has to satisfy multiple jurisdictions and I'm certain it's a nightmare, although given Stanford's plethora of engineers, lawyers and real estate experts, I still think it's odd that Stanford can't double the size of its student population when it literally has 4,187% more space per student than the little school down the El Camino Real...

That said, one can't discount the effect of NIMBYism. I grew up in Santa Cruz County at a time when the County issued 23 residential building permits -- total -- per year, and that's not new construction, that's TOTAL. The city leaders made it clear they didn't want any more people -- interesting for a fundamentally Socialist community. In the 1990s, I bought a 1,200 square foot house and blew it up into a brobdingnagian mansion of 1,889 square feet, all at the back of the property on a 10k square foot lot. My next door neighbor told me that if San Jose had a decent housing planning commission, she would have prevented my construction increase because "no one needs more than 1,200 square feet." She lived alone, I had a family of four, but...okay.

[Mick]

Is Santa Clara subject to growth restrictions driven by Santa Clara County? When I was there, they had 3,300 undergrads on 80 acres. Today, it's 6,400 undergrads on 106 acres. Stanford has over 8,000 acres. Why such a battle to increase Stanford's student population?

- Stanford has ~7.400 undergrad and ~10,000 grad students, I don't know how many grad students are at SCU.
- the ~8,000 acres includes a lot of land that is not developable (e.g., the land west of Junipero Serra Blvd) at least not under current agreements (and I can imagine the resistance to developing the Dish as student housing) or has other uses (e.g., Stanford Industrial Park, Stanford Shopping Center, Jasper Ridge biological preserve) 
- walking around campus at both LSJU and SCU the Stanford campus seems to have a lot more development and a lot of taller building
- way back when (1979-82) undergrads had three years of guaranteed on-campus housing, now it appears to be all four years, this change has increased the number of undergrad housing units by ~40% (mostly due to going from 3 to 4 years but the undergrad population is also larger now than it was in 1982).  Are all SCU undergrads housed on campus?
- I would guess SCU would be under the jurisdiction of only the City of Santa Clara, for Stanford it is "more complicated"

• 4,017 acres in unincorporated Santa Clara County
  
• 2,700 acres in unincorporated San Mateo County
  
• 1,161 acres in Palo Alto
  
• 114 acres in Woodside
  
• 111 acres in Menlo Park
  
• 76 acres in Portola Valley
  
• 1 acre in Los Altos Hills
  
• 8,180 total acres
  

https://facts.stanford.edu/about/stanford-campus

ADD: Stanford says ~60 of the ~8,180 acres are open space

https://oga.stanford.edu/stanford-lands

see map here

To your questions: 
- SCU had 6,249 undergraduate students and 3,091 graduate students in the 2023/24 year, total = 9,350. The undergrad population grew to 6,577 the next year. The grad student total is about the same as 45 years ago, the undergrad population is nearly double.
- 53% of undergrads lived on campus...92% of frosh, 86% of sophs live on campus. I suspect the remainder live at home.
- As for high-density buildings, there is one 11-story dorm, one five-story dorm, all the rest are three story dorms. SCU owns a few apartment buildings, all two-story.

I realize Stanford has to satisfy multiple jurisdictions and I'm certain it's a nightmare, although given Stanford's plethora of engineers, lawyers and real estate experts, I still think it's odd that Stanford can't double the size of its student population when it literally has 4,187% more space per student than the little school down the El Camino Real...

That said, one can't discount the effect of NIMBYism. I grew up in Santa Cruz County at a time when the County issued 23 residential building permits -- total -- per year, and that's not new construction, that's TOTAL. The city leaders made it clear they didn't want any more people -- interesting for a fundamentally Socialist community. In the 1990s, I bought a 1,200 square foot house and blew it up into a brobdingnagian mansion of 1,889 square feet, all at the back of the property on a 10k square foot lot. My next door neighbor told me that if San Jose had a decent housing planning commission, she would have prevented my construction increase because "no one needs more than 1,200 square feet." She lived alone, I had a family of four, but...okay.