By Clarence Cromwell
Michael Malvase just wants to divide his property so he can sell it and move with his wife to a more convenient retirement house, he told the Monte Sereno City Council Dec. 17. But the city won't support his application to the Santa Clara County Planning Department because Malvase's two-acre parcel on rural Greenwood Lane isn't enough land for a pair of one-acre lots, by the city's reckoning.
Malvase lost--by a 3-2 vote--his request for support for an application to split the lot. The decision denied Malvase's appeal of the staff refusal of the subdivision.
The Malvases didn't have enough land to meet zoning requirements for two lots, and the split wouldn't have complied with the general plan, council members said, agreeing with Planner Brian Loventhal. Although Malvase has about two acres--and each lot must be at least an acre in his neighborhood--the city doesn't count land used for a private road, and it subtracted a percentage of land from the total because of a steep slope on one side of the property.
The Malvases came up about a half-acre short.
Councilmembers Joel Gambord and Gordon Knight wanted to approve the lot split. The staff was just nitpicking over technical matters when the two-acre lot should have been simply split, Gambord said, especially since it doesn't actually lie within the city.
"I went out there, and I said, 'This passes the common sense test,' " Gambord said.
Now, Dolores Malvase said, they are not sure if they'll keep petitioning the county for permission to split the lot because county officials said they won't allow the lot subdivision unless Monte Sereno approves it. She said the decision has devalued the property.
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, January 8, 1997.
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