Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Photograph by George Sakkestad

SummerHill development manager Elaine Breeze shows where the trail is planned through more than 80 acres of open space the developer would like to dedicate to the town. The area in the background would be a part of that space.

SummerHill wins over many neighbors

By Jeff Kearns

When SummerHill Homes comes back to the Planning Commission March 11 with its plans to build 46 homes on a former orchard on Blossom Hill Road, the developers won't be seeking approval for just another cookie-cutter development. SummerHill has done almost everything possible to make sure its plan is too good to refuse.

The plan has undergone numerous revisions, including rearrangement of the layout of both streets and houses. The amount of open space SummerHill will offer the town has increased to more than 85 acres.

Originally, plans submitted for the site in 1992 showed 90 homes, including 32 townhomes. SummerHill, which took over the project from other developers in 1996, is now proposing 47 homes, one of which will be a renovated historic house currently on the site.

SummerHill development manager Elaine Breeze says the many successive changes the plans have been through were intended to take into account concerns of neighbors.

When neighbors complained that some houses would back up to Blossom Hill Road, SummerHill turned the homes around.

Some neighbors worried traffic would increase in the area. Now, SummerHill plans to widen Blossom Hill Road by 25 feet to accommodate a center turning lane to improve traffic flow, and to create a 100-foot buffer zone of flowering trees between the road and the homes. Running through the trees will be an asphalt path instead of regular sidewalk, another change made at the request of neighbors.

SummerHill also moved homes off the hillsides and back from Blossom Hill Road. Additionally, the Palo Alto-based company introduced single-story homes, and Breeze met with individual neighbors whose lots border the development to discuss setbacks for the new homes.

A special storm drainage system will also be added to the property, which will accommodate a much larger amount of runoff and keep it from flowing onto neighboring properties, Breeze said.

SummerHill will also preserve a barn and a shed once used for drying apricots. The historic house that's to be renovated was built by Ralph and Sophie Heintz, who owned the property from the late 1940s until Sophie died in 1990. Ralph died in 1979.

Two of the buildings on the site--the caretaker's home and a garage/laboratory--are set to be demolished. Ralph Heintz, an inventor, worked along with other inventors in the laboratory. SummerHill plans an exhibit about the history of the Heintzes and their orchard.

The Heintz home will be sold as part of the development.

Opponents of the project were originally more numerous and vocal, but as SummerHill continued to make concessions and work with neighbors to make improvements, many changed their minds. But a small group of opponents still plans to oppose the development.

Sandy Anderson, whose 17-acre property would border the proposed park, has been holding meetings with neighbors at her home.

"There's about 20 of us meeting to decide what we're going to do. We're not opposed to the development, just the density. We'd like to leave it as it is, but realistically we know we can't have that," she said.

Anderson says the group's concerns center around traffic impacts, increased pollution, drainage problems, overtaxed utilities in the area and overcrowded schools. The development is located in the Union and Campbell high school districts.

"We'd like to scale it back as far as impact on the community," Anderson said.

Anderson wants the density of the development area cut in half, to about one house per acre, but Breeze says that would not be feasible.

Like many other neighbors, Lyle Chambers says he would prefer the orchard to stay the way it is, but he is willing to accept SummerHill's proposal because of how attentive developers have been to his concerns and those of other neighbors.

"They've bent over backward to accommodate us," he says.

For Chambers, what sweetened the deal most was the proposed dedication of more than 85 acres of hillside to the town for public use. SummerHill plans to build trails on the land and then donate the land to the town as open space.

Most people agree that the land should remain open space, Town Manager Dave Knapp said, but liability and maintenance may cloud the issue of handing the land over to the town. "The question is whether the taxpayers will pay for the costs associated with the open space."

The answer, Knapp said, ultimately rests with the Town Council. Councilmembers will make the final decision on SummerHill's proposal, since it is a planned development which requires an amendment to the current zoning of the site.

If the town does not accept the dedication, SummerHill becomes responsible for costs associated with the open space. SummerHill offered the land to the Mid-Peninsula Open Space District, which did not accept because it was not deemed a priority for the district and was not seen as cost-effective. The Santa Clara County Parks Department and the Trust for Public Lands also refused.

If the Planning Commission approves the application, the earliest it can go before the Town Council is April 20, according to planner Erwin Ordonez, who is currently preparing a report on the development. The report will examine issues of traffic, noise, drainage and historic preservation.

SummerHill's consultants, Ordonez says, prepared very thorough reports on the environmental aspects of the project--including traffic, noise, plants, wildlife and seismology--which the town later verified with other consultants.

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