Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Jean Richardson (left) and Dennise Carter, whose Broadway Avenue homes back up to the Toll House parking lot, said the new addition would loom over their yards. The "story poles" in the background are now required by the town to show how big a proposed project will be.

Planners give Toll House a thumbs down

New revenue vs. historic character

By Jeff Kearns

The Toll House Hotel, seeking the town's approval on a major expansion plan, lost the first round last week, after the Planning Commission turned down the request.

Owner Wayne Levenfeld can either come back to the town with a redesign or try his luck by appealing to the Town Council, but after Wednesday's meeting, he said he wasn't sure what steps he would take next.

Plans call for 27 new rooms: 11 on top of the existing structure and another 16 in an annex in the parking lot behind the hotel. The annex, with two floors of rooms built over one level of parking and part of the hotel's driveway, stirred up the neighbors, who said that the addition would loom over their neighborhood and destroy the charm of the historic district.

Residents lined up behind two clear-cut issues: economic growth and preserving the character of downtown.

Downtown business owners who liked the plan praised the hotel for bringing in guests who like to spend cash downtown, and said the expanded hotel would bring in an additional $100,000 per year in hotel taxes to the town.

Town of Los Gatos Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Sheri Lewis spoke in favor of the project. "You look at the quality of life and the viability of business, and you decide what's best overall," she said. The chamber also endorsed the expansion in a letter.

Commissioners said they didn't doubt that the hotel would be an economic benefit to the town but had reservations about the project's height, which is two feet higher than the 45 feet allowed by town code, and the zero-setback proposed for the annex. For that structure, the town would require a 34-foot setback.

Levenfeld said he would rather appeal a denial to the council than scale back the project. Some commissioners frowned on what appeared to be an unwillingness to compromise. Levenfeld later told the Los Gatos Weekly-Times his comment was in response to a specific question about scaling back to just 11 rooms over the current building.

Marcia Jensen hit on parking. "To justify a project that reduces parking in the downtown area? I don't think we can even consider it." The town would require 170 spaces at the hotel, but plans only show 152.

Kathryn Morgan said the application, which is requesting a planned development ordinance, didn't have significant justification to violate the setbacks, height and parking codes. "It's a terrible intrusion into the fabric of the historic district, people's privacy and the whole neighborhood," she said. "No mitigation seems feasible."

The commission voted 5-1 to deny the application, with Paul Bruno absent. Chair Sandy Decker said she wasn't voting to deny because she thought the project could use a redesign.

Brian Hinman, whose home at 37 Broadway backs up to the hotel, lashed out against the project. Levenfeld, he said, was just paying lip service to neighborhood concerns at meetings with area residents.

Hinman criticized the "professional, concerted way he's been spending money to generate support" among residents, referring to a San Jose public relations firm Levenfeld hired, which he said collected signatures and wrote letters in support of the expansion for people to sign.

Brenna Bolger of PRx, who handles public relations for the Toll House, told the Weekly-Times that nobody from her company collected signatures, but the agency did write letters for people who asked.

The agency's Andy Fara says he wrote "three or four letters for people who said they didn't have time to write it themselves." He says the letters were drafts, "and we encouraged them to use them as ideas, but in some cases people used [our letters]."

The town has received at least one letter rescinding an earlier letter in support of the project.

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