Council agrees to make Task Force addendum a part of General Plan
Some restrictive language needs to be more flexible
Tie-breaking vote July 10
By Nathan R. Huff
The General Plan debate, or nondebate as it has recently become, reached the town council on June 26. The council prepared to adopt the document with the majority of changes suggested by the General Plan Task Force II and the planning commission.
Following a brief public hearing that included testimony from hillside and children's hospital advocates, as well as the town's two mobile home park owners, council members praised the document before running through their own lists of concerns.
The council agreed on the need to adopt the 30-page Task Force II addendum to the plan, as well as the planning commission suggestions, with a few notable exceptions that the council said were overly restrictive.
The public hearing will be continued on both the General Plan and General Plan environmental impact report on July 10. At that time town staff will present the council with the changes it has approved and a list of possible modifications that stalled on a 2-2 tie June 26. Councilman Jan Hutchins, who was absent from the meeting, will cast the tie-breaking vote on those changes on July 10.
With only a small audience, comprised mostly of members of the two task forces and General Plan committee, the council doled out praise for the document.
"I think this is an outstanding example of the public's involvement in a project," councilman Joe Pirzynski said. "The fact that the document is as cohesive a document as it is, is a tribute to everyone who was a participant."
Following the rounds of congratulation, the four council members dug into the document and the task force's addendum, suggesting deletions of some passages and changes of wording in others.
All three of the audience groups with specific concerns were recognized. Doug McNelly and Jerry Mirassou, the town's two mobile-home-park owners, questioned why the zoning for their parks was being changed from medium density residential to mobile home park when other types of residential developments--such as apartments and duplexes--are not as singled out.
Paul Curtis, the town's director of community development, said the town was only trying to make its land-use designation, which is mobile home park, consistent with the zoning. He added that, unlike mobile home parks, there is no equivalent zoning designation for apartments and other types of residential developments.
McNelly, who has been attempting to convert the Los Gatos Mobile Home Park for years, questioned the timing of the change. "I would ask you," McNelly said, "do you think it makes sense at this point to be considering changing a land-use designation immediately ahead of a potential change in use that would then be in conflict with that new land-use designation?"
While the council stopped short of saying it would delete that part of the new General Plan, it agreed McNelly and Mirassou should have the opportunity to address the issue again at the July 10 meeting.
Dr. Richard Fox and Dr. David Weissman were also successful in getting the council to reconsider their respective issues. Fox, a children's hospital advocate, would like to see the word "children" appear in the section relating to the town's commitment to health, and "healthcare" added to the list of child services the town should promote.
Weissman, who has been trying to get the town to strengthen its hillside protection standards, received council support for bumping up the timetable for the revision of hillside development standards. Curtis said that, as part of the ongoing General Plan process, staff would return with a list of all the proposed studies and implementation measures set forth in the General Plan. The council will then prioritize them.
The remainder of council comments centered on moderating language the council felt could restrict the town in future decisions. Councilwoman Linda Lubeck had the longest list of revisions and found support for many.
Lubeck and fellow council members disagreed with the task force on whether nonhistoric buildings near historic areas should be subject to historical review, saying it should be "studied" but not necessarily implemented.
The council repealed the task force suggestion that safety always be the deciding criteria in consideration of traffic circulation. Council members feared common sense could be overrun by a professional engineer's opinion if a single criteria is always considered the most important.
Lubeck also suggested that language including "edible landscaping" be removed from the plan. Saying she "started to wonder if she was living in Berkeley" when reading that section, Lubeck found consensus with fellow council members that the language was too specific. The same was also true for a provision in the plan requiring electrical charging stations in all new planned developments.
Other points questioned by the council included fencing on hillsides, which the council said should not be discouraged altogether, as suggested by the task force. Council members supported privacy fences, so long as they were erected close to structures.
Los Gatos Boulevard also remains a bone of contention. Despite task force and planning commission recommendations, bike lanes on Los Gatos Boulevard still aren't popular with the council.
Whether or not the boulevard should stay at four lanes or be expanded to six was one of a number of issues the council split 2-2 on. Others included whether or not to include a statement against the Caltrans plan of eventually widening Highway 17, lowering the height limit on downtown buildings from 45 to 35 feet and limiting houses in predominantly one-story neighborhoods to 25 feet.
Whether or not to remove the word "visitor" from a sentence in the town character section was also a point of debate. Task force members wanted to see "suburban, high-tech, visitor destination businesses" replaced with "suburban-resident serving and high-tech businesses." The council will debate the matter further on July 10.
Los Gatos, California Since 1881
