Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Council deadlocks on site

By Clarence Cromwell

A proposed 12-unit affordable-housing complex on Miles Avenue deadlocked the Town Council 2-2 on May 19.

Council members were asked to consider loans to Community Housing Developers totaling $250,000, from Community Development Block Grant funds and from Redevelopment Agency funds, to help the nonprofit organization buy creekside land next door to the town's service center. They'll have to reconsider the item when Councilmember Steve Blanton, absent from the May 19 meeting, returns for a tie-breaker.

The project would include four one-bedroom units and eight studio apartments that would provide housing for renters who earn less than $30,000 a year and who probably would work downtown. The units would range from $450 to $750 per month.

A proposed funding package for the project includes the town loan, $250,000 from Santa Clara County HOME and $450,00 from Wells Fargo Bank.

Mayor Joanne Benjamin and Councilmember Randy Attaway voted against the loan because they objected to the site.

"I just don't think it's the right place to be housing people," Benjamin said.

The vacant property, currently covered only by yellowed grass and a pair of unused cars, is situated between the town's corporation yard and PG&E's Los Gatos substation, a metal framework studded with insulators. Both neighbors present chain-link fences topped with barbed wire. The land is also just a stone's throw from Route 17, just across Miles Avenue.

Attaway said the combined noise of trucks in the town yard, the substation and highway traffic makes the property unsuitable for low-income housing. He also suggested that electromagnetic fields from the substation might pose a danger to people living nearby.

"We should do better than that," Attaway said.

He added that the Los Gatos trailer park, not far away, would be the perfect site for low-income housing. That property is also near Los Gatos Creek, but is adjacent to other housing.

Councilmember Jan Hutchins argued that the site is perfect; the lot would be adjacent to the creek trail, and renters would be a five- minute walk away from downtown.

"It's a pretty wonderful situation," Hutchins said.

Council members decided to continue the item to their June 16 meeting, when all five members are expected to attend.

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