By Clarence Cromwell
The seven-person crowd in the Town Council Chambers last Wednesday might have been the calm before the storm.
At the tail end of its April 23 agenda, the Planning Commission unanimously approved a new draft of the housing element (a chapter of the general plan) that sets in print the town's plans to get more affordable housing built by someday rezoning land to accommodate high-density apartment buildings.
"It gives us the tools to do what needs to be done to provide housing for all our residents," Commissioner Mike Abkin said.
High-density housing is usually vehemently opposed wherever it may be proposed, but the handful of attendees at last week's hearing supported both the housing element and affordable housing.
The Los Gatos-Saratoga-Monte Sereno League of Women Voters supports the element, said spokesperson Nancy Burbank, because the league supports the production of low-cost housing and rental units.
Two residents of Los Gatos Mobile Home Park said after the meeting they hope for acceptance of the housing element, although their park's owners plan to build affordable housing where their homes are now parked.
Dorie Ousley and Nancy Johns said they hope to see below-market-rate condos replace the mobile home park, because they want to purchase brick-and-mortar homes but don't want to move; they'd like to sell their mobile homes and buy condos.
That support notwithstanding, Los Gatans in the past have come out en masse against anything that smacks of big apartments next door. Town Council members have said the fierce opposition was what kept them from simply rezoning land for apartments in the past.
"They hear 'high-density housing,' and they think of Chicago tenements," Planning Commission Chairwoman Sandy Decker said.
But that's not what Los Gatos has in mind, Decker said, explaining that any high-density housing will be carefully placed and carefully designed.
Decker said the high-density units could be placed in areas that are not adjacent to residential neighborhoods.
"We have to zone appropriately for affordable housing," Decker said after the meeting.
Gesturing at the empty Council Chambers, she said, "We don't want a hue and cry in here."
The town struggled for seven years to get state acceptance, since California housing officials wanted Los Gatos to rezone massive tracts to make way for apartments.
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This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, April 30, 1997.
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