City Council
Staff Report
From: City Manager
Report Type: CONSENT CALENDAR
Lead Department: Public Works
Meeting Date: November 17, 2025
Report #:2508-5087
TITLE
Climate Action and Sustainability Committee Recommendation to Approve Program Design Guidelines for Successor to Multi-family Electric Vehicle Charger Program; CEQA Status - Not a Project
RECOMMENDATION
The Climate Action and Sustainability Committee and staff recommend that the City Council approve the Program Design Guidelines for Successor to Multi-family Electric Vehicle Charger Program to guide development of a revised multi-family electric vehicle (EV) charger program in the coming months.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The City has had success expanding EV access for multi-family buildings with its current multifamily EV program, but this program’s success has required substantial incentive money, meaning it is not financially scalable. The City must experiment with new program financial models to provide service more broadly and at a greater scale. Gathering input from several multi-family EV charger installers and operators, staff developed the attached program design guidelines (Attachment A). The guidelines focus on financial models aimed at scaling installations communitywide and implementation strategies aimed at serving different types of multi-family buildings with different levels of EV adoption utilizing a variety of EV charging technologies. They focus on deploying shared charging at low levels of adoption and individual chargers where demand supports them. They specify grid-friendly installations and inclusion of active and shared transportation facilities where appropriate. And they highlight the need for complementary programming to help drive adoption of e-mobility and use of active and shared transportation.
Since 2017, the City has run an EV Charger Rebate Program providing incentives and technical assistance to help multi-family property owners and condominium associations install EV charging. This program has to date resulted in 325 shared EV chargers across 26 multifamily residential buildings representing a total of 1,324 units, or about 12.4% of the multi-family units
in Palo Alto. However, to reach the community’s climate goals, multi-family residents will need significantly greater EV charger access. The EV Charger Needs Assessment study done in support of the E-Mobility Strategic Roadmap1 found that providing EV charger access at home is more cost-effective than providing public charging to serve that same need.
The Climate Action and Sustainability Committee (CASC) reviewed these guidelines on September 19, 2025 and unanimously recommended them for approval.2
BACKGROUND
EV adoption is critical to achieving the community’s climate goals. The emissions reduction pathway evaluated in the Sustainability and Climate Action Plan (S/CAP) Impact Analysis3 requires that 55% of residents adopt EVs, including 33% of multi-family residents. As of the end of 2024, EVs accounted for 19.3% of all vehicle registrations in Palo Alto; only 15.7% of all EVs in Palo Alto were registered to multifamily addresses, while 79.3% were registered to single family homes. EV charging access has been one of the major barriers to multi-family EV adoption as multifamily residents have little to no direct ability to install their own charging units and multifamily property owners/managers/HOAs often are dealing with competing priorities, may lack subject matter expertise, and face complex decision-making processes, challenging infrastructure installations, high out-of-pocket costs, and electric service capacity constraints when considering more comprehensive EV charging infrastructure projects.
ANALYSIS
Staff drew on its experience with the current EV program and interviews with a number of electrical contractors (e.g. EV installers) and electric vehicle service providers (EVSPs) (e.g. EV operators) detailed in the Stakeholder Engagement section below, to develop the attached Design Guidelines for Successor to Current Muti-Family Electric Vehicle Charger Program (Program Design Guidelines). Staff has learned from its existing program the importance of the convenience of providing charging at individual parking spaces rather than shared guest spaces and the need for technical assistance and facilitation. Several additional topics emerged from discussions with EVSPs as important in designing the next multi-family EV program: financing, technology and design considerations, and providing flexible solutions for different types of 1 City Council, August 18, 2025, Staff and the Climate Action and Sustainability Committee Recommendation to Accept the E-Mobility Strategic Roadmap, Attachment B,
https://cityofpaloalto.primegov.com/meetings/ItemWithTe mplateType?id=8714&meetingTemplateType=2&compiledMeetingDocumentId=15432 2 Climate Action and Sustainability Committee, September 19, 2025, Staff Report 2507-5023, Review and Discussio n of Design Guidelines for Successor to Current Multi-family Electric Vehicle Charger Program, https://cityofpaloalto .primegov.com/meetings/ItemWithTemplateType?id=9234&meetingTemplateType=2&compiledMeetingDocumen tId=16878
3 AECOM Palo Alto Action Impact Memo, June 7, 2021, page 10, https://www.paloalto.gov/files/assets/public/v/2/ sustainability/reports/aecom-palo-alto-action-impactmemo_final_rev-210607.pdf buildings and levels of EV adoption. These are discussed in more detail in the CASC report, but in summary:
Financing: The current model for EV charger development, providing incentives to cover the majority of the cost, is not scalable to the entire community. These design guidelines envision a system of financing where the cost of repaying the original investment comes from charges to drivers and landlords while ensuring competitive charging rates. Technology and system design: Staff’s discussions with EV charging installers revealed a range of strategies for installing chargers, and these design guidelines envision a flexible program that can accommodate a wide range of strategies. Staff also received feedback on various aspects of the City’s permitting and interconnection requirements it will consider in designing the program.
Risk Management: The program design guidelines envision a program that uses a range of different tools to deliver charging appropriate to the density of EV owners nearby, ranging from mobility hubs and on-street charging to shared on-site chargers to chargers in individual assigned spaces. Individual space installations would only be done when there are enough drivers in a building to make it worthwhile to install all the electrical upgrades needed for EV chargers in individual spaces. Complementary Programming and Grid Impacts: The design guidelines address grid impacts by incorporating load management systems and address risk by including outreach to EV drivers in the area to ensure chargers are used once installed.
FISCAL/RESOURCE IMPACT
Funding has already been approved in the FY 2026 budget for a revised multi-family EV charger program, using $3.1 million from Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) funds in the Utilities Department Operating Budget. Staff intends to launch a program using this funding and based on these Program Design Guidelines. Staff’s preliminary estimates show that the FY 2026 approved LCFS funding could be adequate to support at least 200 to 500 chargers, depending on the program structure. In designing the program, staff may determine that additional Council approvals are needed, such as for a contract with a financing partner or other service provider, for a budget amendment, or for amendments to the City’s planned use of LCFS funds.
Staff will, at minimum, provide an informational report to Council on program design prior to program launch.
STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT
Staff solicited feedback from electrical contractors and EVSPs that have completed EV infrastructure installations in Palo Alto and are particularly interested in doing more work in the multi-family residential space in the future. Staff spoke with nine different companies focused on EV charger installations, operations, and maintenance. Feedback is described in detail in the CASC staff report but included extensive discussions on financing, permitting and interconnection, risk management, and outreach.
The CASC reviewed these design guidelines on September 19, 20257 and unanimously recommended them for approval. Discussion and questions focused on public on-street charging, how financing for this program compares to other financing programs available in California, streamlining permitting and interconnection, funding sources, and transformer upgrade fees.
The Climate Action and Sustainability Working Group also discussed these design guidelines on September 17, 2025. Two members were in attendance, one of whom was a Utilities Advisory Commissioner. They were generally supportive of the proposal, especially focusing on financing over incentives, the outreach to drivers in complexes with EV charging, and the concept of including e-bike charging and shared vehicles as features of the program. The pros and cons of managed or low power charging and the fire risks of batteries were also discussed.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
Committee action on this item is not a project as defined by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) because approval of program design guidelines is a is an organizational or administrative activity that will not result in direct or indirect physical changes in the environment. CEQA Guidelines section 15378(b)(5).
Future work to implement a potential program is within the scope of the EV Strategic Plan (now E-Mobility Strategic Roadmap, adopted by Council on August 18, 2025, Staff Report #2507- 4943), whose environmental impacts were analyzed as part of the Sustainability and Climate Action Plan (S/CAP) Addendum to the Comprehensive Plan Environmental Impact Report. On June 5, 2023 (Staff Report #2303-1158), Council certified the Addendum, which found that S/CAP programs would not result in any significant or substantially more severe effects beyond what was previously analyzed in the Comprehensive Plan EIR.
ATTACHMENTS
Attachment A: Design Guidelines for Successor to Multi-family Electric Vehicle Charger Program APPROVED BY:
Brad Eggleston, Director Public Works/City Engineer
7 Climate Action and Sustainability Committee, September 19, 2025, Staff Report 2507-5023, Review and Discussio n of Design Guidelines for Successor to Current Multi-family Electric Vehicle Charger Program, https://cityofpaloalto .primegov.com/meetings/ItemWithTemplateType?id=9234&meetingTemplateType=2&compiledMeetingDocumen tId=16878