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Sand Hill Property Company has a webpage dedicated to its nearly 2,000 residences in Woodland Park – a high-density apartment community in East Palo Alto. It advertises the homes as an opportunity to “improve the quality of life” in the neighborhood through “safer, healthier” living.
But residents, who have endured rat infestations, water shutoffs and denied requests for maintenance for years, paint a different picture of life in the Woodland Park neighborhood, which is located west of the U.S. Highway 101 and includes a large proportion of East Palo Alto’s rental housing stock.
The conflict between Sand Hill and its tenants has been simmering for two years, with residents lodging complaints against the company to protest unsanitary conditions. Sand Hill Property Company, a major developer with both residential and commercial projects in East Palo Alto, Menlo Park and other Silicon Valley communities, has appealed dozens of grants for rent relief and reimbursement in Woodland Park over the past year, prompting residents of Woodland Park Apartments to protest this month at a Sand Hill-owned Whole Foods property in Los Altos.
Over 30 tenants, including young children and advocates, stood in front of the packed grocery store on the evening of April 1, clutching signs reading phrases like “We won, pay us now,” and “We deserve better living.” Curious passersby not only stopped, stared and honked but asked how they could help.
The protest followed nearly two years of petitioning and formal complaints by the residents, who hope to spread the word about their experiences to the wider community. Simple maintenance like broken windows have taken months to repair, they say. But more urgent requests like rat infestations – that in one instance led to a baby’s face being scratched – have gone unattended for much longer, tenants testified at public hearings, according to city documents.
The East Palo Alto Rent Stabilization Board ruled in May 2025 that residents of 201, 301 and 245 East O’Keefe Street were entitled to rent relief and years of partial rent reimbursement due to the habitability conditions.
Under the board’s ruling, tenants were entitled to reimbursement within 30 days of the decision. A year later, they’ve received nothing. Sand Hill appealed the decisions at all three residences.
“We’re not asking for much, just for what they owe us,” said longtime Woodland Park resident Maggie Pande.
History of complaints
Tenants in 201, 301 and 245 East O’Keefe Street apartments formed the East O’Keefe Tenant Association in July 2024 after the company ignored longstanding complaints and then decided to sell the buildings. All three buildings were sold on April 18, 2025, according to the property listings on the website of the real estate company Compass. Sand Hill, which still owns the majority of the other residences in the area, declined to say whom it sold the three buildings to. The Mercury News reported that the buyer was a New York City-based investor.
“We are deeply committed to the future success of EPA and remain invested in the community,” Mike Kramer, spokesperson for Sand Hill, told this publication. “These particular sales were executed for typical business reasons.”
The sale has not deterred residents from continuing to push Sand Hill for relief. Some of the tenants who were picketing in Los Altos have blamed their former landlord for both withholding money and for poor communication throughout the dispute over living conditions.
These concerns also surfaced during the hearings in 2024 and 2025. Residents in the largely Spanish-speaking community reported that they were provided with legal forms in English to verify the current state of their apartments. Some did not understand or respond to the documents. The miscommunication prompted the tenant association to send an official letter of demands, including calls for the developer to maintain sanitary conditions in common areas, a minimum 24-hour notice for water shutoffs, and for communication to be provided in both English and Spanish. The tenants issued their demands during a protest in front of the Sand Hill Palo Alto office.
At the time, Chief Operating Officer Jason Villarreal thanked the residents for sharing their thoughts and promised the company would evaluate demands.
“It’s important we address this,” Villarreal said.
But in the months after the action, the complaints persisted. Tenants at all three apartments petitioned on September 18, 2024 to the East Palo Alto Rent Stabilization Board for relief. Residents are entitled to rent relief and reimbursements when a reduction in maintenance and services affects the health of residents.
A City housing officer and Woodland Park Community Manager Aura Andrade inspected the buildings before the rent board hosted a hearing for each residence in January and February 2025.
During their testimony, residents recounted more than nine years of substandard living conditions. They reported ongoing rat and cockroach infestations, moldy and unstable floors, broken elevators, leaky pipes, a lack of security and peeling paint among many other issues.
A resident who uses a wheelchair at 301 East O’Keefe Street had to be carried up and down the stairs during weeks-long closures of the elevator. In another instance, a woman fell on the cracked hardwood in the apartment hallway.
“For many years, the management has not dealt with our complaints and our concerns, to the point that we began to believe we had no right to raise these issues,” a summary of the testimony read.
In response to each of the complaints, management, including Community Manager Andrade, Compliance Manager Andrea Bumagat and Maintenance Supervisor Enrique Bedolla, disputed the tenants’ testimony. Staff claimed the apartments were in good condition and that they had made all necessary repairs.
In regards to the pest infestations, staff claimed that they had sprayed and covered holes.
“Many of the conditions that tenants identify have existed for many years and for which tenants should not be granted relief,” management testimony read.
East Palo Alto housing officers disagreed. Hearing Officer Michael Roush concluded that the landlord has “delayed unreasonably in making repairs and has not taken adequate steps to eradicate the rat problem.” The hearing judge found their testimony convincing.
“There was substantial testimony and documentary evidence that many common areas are not being repaired or maintained properly,” Roush wrote in his May 30, 2025 decision for 245 East O’Keefe St.
The judge ordered Sand Hill to pay restitution. Tenants at 245 E. O’Keefe St. were awarded a 5% monthly rent reimbursement from Sept. 2021 through May 2025. They were also granted a 5% rent reduction from June 2025 to May 2026, allowing landlords time to address problems.
Residents 201 E. O’Keefe St. were granted a 7% reimbursement from Sept. 2021 through May 2025, and a 5% rent reduction from June 2025 through May 2026.
Tenants at 301 E. O’Keefe St. were awarded a range of rent reimbursements from 7% to 22% for approximately two years, depending on their specific living circumstances. They were also entitled to a continuous award if elevator malfunctions and leaky pipes persisted after the hearing, according to city documents.
Housing officers ordered Sand Hill to pay the reimbursement within 30 days of the decision, but Sand Hill appealed each of the decisions, arguing that awards were excessive, that some residents had moved out of the residences during their relief period and that it did not have a reasonable amount of time to address the concerns.
The developer says appeals are a normal part of the rent control process and that it has no control over the speed of proceedings, Sand Hill spokesperson Christie Farrell wrote in a message to this publication.
“As we have shown during our ownership of the property, we have always sought to maintain open lines of communications with our tenants and to reach common ground on necessary improvements to the units,” Farrell wrote.
Now that each of the residents is undergoing the slow-moving appeal process, their relief is indefinitely paused. Tenants have filed responses to each appeal and are currently awaiting new hearings.
“We are seeing the appeal process as a way for Sand Hill to delay and discourage tenants from taking action,” tenant advocate and organizer James Huynh said.
Sand Hill’s continued development
The East O’Keefe tenant disputes are not the only complaints that the city has received about Sand Hill, which has plans to build hundreds more units throughout the city.
The company has embarked on a plan to build more than 250 units at the corner of University Avenue and Bay Road, also known as the “Four Corners” site. As part of the proposal, Sand Hill requested the city’s permission to circumvent the city’s affordable housing laws for the new project, which require builders to either offer some units at below-market-rate levels or pay in-lieu fees to support affordable housing projects. Against staff recommendations, the East Palo Alto City Council approved in September 2025 a proposal from Sand Hill to slash the amount of affordable units without paying a required fee under city laws.
The East Palo Alto Planning Commission also voted to reject the Four Corners project for its failure to include ample retail space. That decision was reversed by the council earlier this year. In overruling the commission, staff cited the state Housing Accountability Act, a state law that prohibits local governments from denying projects that are consistent with objective development standards.
Residents who have struggled to stay afloat in a quickly developing town, have expressed ongoing distrust of the company across multiple council meetings.
Resident Lavain Henderson is among them. His father lives at an East O’Keefe complex in conditions that Henderson described as “horrible” at a March 3 council meeting.
“Why should we trust them to take on this development project when they can’t take care of the buildings in our community that they already owned for years?” Henderson said.
