The Menlo Park City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night in favor of finalizing a deal allowing Facebook to exceed an employee cap at its new headquarters in the city. The complex may eventually employ as many as 6,600 people.

Despite initial concerns about the environmental consequences and impact on local transportation posed by the development, after 10 weeks of negotiations both sides expressed satisfaction with the final agreement.

The agreement will include graduated payments over the next 10 years of $8.5 million to Menlo Park, with a further $5 million due during the subsequent four years if Facebook continues to exceed the previous employee cap of 3,600. Facebook will also fund local bicycle and pedestrian improvements, in addition to economically incentivizing employees to shop locally and providing local internship and job training programs.

Vehicle traffic in and out of the campus will also be restricted by an overall cap of 15,000 vehicles per day, with further limitations on rush-hour traffic. Exceeding the cap would incur daily penalties ranging from $500 to $100,000, depending on the number of violations.

East Palo Alto, which would also be affected by the increase in traffic prompted by the Facebook development, will benefit from fines incurred by exceeding the trip cap, at a percentage yet to be determined.

— Marshall Watkins