Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Planners send Cypress back to drawing board

By John Pancharian

Cypress Homes will go back to the drawing board, as the Los Gatos Planning Commission unanimously voted to reject its planned development at 1300 Pollard Road.

Ken Olcott, representing Cypress, presented plans for a cluster of triplexes, redrawn after neighbors complained of several aspects of the development. Planning commissioners and neighbors were not swayed by the changes, however, saying they were inadequate to mitigate the original problems.

"We've sort of dealt with a difficult lot that's been a blight on the community that they wanted cleaned up," Olcott said the of the angular and odd-shaped property. He told commissioners he had met with neighbors, collected input and identified three main issues concerning neighbors. These included the height of the buildings, the buffer between the development and the adjacent Los Gatos Woods Apartments, and the traffic issue at Pollard. "I believe I've resolved a majority of issues," he said at the beginning of the presentation.

The new plans described a 15-unit townhouse complex consisting of two-story buildings with underground garages. To placate neighbors at Los Gatos Woods, Cypress moved the entrance to the development's driveway, set buildings back as much as 45 feet from the property line, created a 15-foot landscape barrier with larger trees between the two properties, and lowered the overall height of the buildings from 34 to 31 feet. Cypress had considered placing the driveway in the center of the planned development, but scrapped the idea because it would have required moving the buildings closer to Los Gatos Woods.

"I think we've taken a good plan and improved it, and I'd be excited to hear your comments," Olcott said.

Neither neighbors or planning commissioners, however, responded with the enthusiasm he had hoped they would.

"The noise issue, even with the wall, is more than I want to listen to," neighbor Chuck Maderos said, adding he was concerned the underground garages would amplify the sounds of cars inside of them.

"I can no longer see the mountains," neighbor Lenny Master said. "I can't see anything except 1300 Pollard Road." She echoed Maderos' concerns about garage noise and said, "The response from Mr. Olcott is nice and things have shifted, but they're minor things."

Other neighbors' concerns included traffic and pedestrian safety, housing density and lighting.

Moving to deny the project, Commissioner Kathy Morgan explained to the public that the commission originally agreed to a project of this size because it could help create a wall against nearby Highway 85. "But this project doesn't have enough to justify all those [large buildings]," she said, and added, "It hasn't really been redesigned to make it compatible with the neighborhood."

Commissioner Len Pacheco also did not like the size of the attached triplexes. "A six-plex that's 150 feet long by 30 feet high--that's a pretty big mass," he said.

"I understand what the town's concerns are," Olcott said after the meeting. "I was trying to create, from what I was given as my original goals, a situation that helped supply multifamily, more affordable housing in the town," Olcott added, saying that was an early directive for the development.

Responding to Pacheco's concerns about the size of the attached triplexes, Olcott said, "Some of the directives I got early on were that they didn't like units that were only 10 feet apart with windows looking right out into another person's window. So what you end up doing is attaching them and eliminating the windows." Olcott said the odd shape of the property, sold off by the state as leftover land after the construction of Highway 85, was also a difficulty.

"I'll come in with another application that is more in line with what I think the town wants now," Olcott said.

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