Specifically, planned development involves the nonprofit Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, which is eyeing a portion of the 20 acres of foothills for a proposed 20,000-sf building. But the Committee for Green Foothills says that such development would pose harm to the California tiger salamander, which the group contends still exists only on San Francisco Peninsula-area land. The group charges that Stanford is chipping away at the small area officially designated as a salamander habitat.

Denise Dade, legislative counsel for the committee who attended Tuesday's Board of Supervisors hearing in San Jose, was unavailable for comment at press time. In October, the group retained San Francisco law firm Shute, Milhaly & Weinberger in its fight to get Stanford to limit its development of area foothills.

The development, announced as part of Stanford's first-ever official plan for future construction, also includes new housing for faculty, staff and students, as well as other academic buildings. The university has agreed that most of its surrounding foothills--2,200 acres--will remain undeveloped for the next quarter century.