Los Gatos Weekly-Times

A gas station on boulevard could solve CNG problem

By Clarence Cromwell

A parcel at Los Gatos Boulevard and Burton Road could become the site for the town's compressed natural gas fueling station.

Director of Building and Engineering Services Scott Baker recommended the site in an Aug. 14 memo to the mayor and Town Council.

Baker has sought a CNG station for Los Gatos since 1994. On June 16, the council turned down his proposal to put a station at the corner of Lark Avenue and Winchester Boulevard, bowing to residents' fears that the station would hurt property values and threaten nearby homes with a fiery explosion. After that meeting, Baker said he'd pursue a station at the town corporation yard on Miles Avenue.

The Los Gatos Boulevard property emerged as an option after gas station developer Rich Hirsch, of San Jose-based Service Station Investments, volunteered to add the CNG filling station to an Arco station he may build at Burton and Los Gatos Boulevard.

Hirsch said he plans four gas pumps, a carwash, a snack shop and repair bays, although he hasn't yet asked for town approval.

If the town can purchase a remnant parcel of Caltrans land next door to the property Hirsch will build on, the CNG station can share the corner with Arco.

Baker said the new site would be ideal because it would be more accessible to vehicles from other cities wishing to use the CNG station. Los Gatos is part of a coalition of cities purchasing compressed natural gas, so any station built would have to be shared with other public agencies.

Since the land is zoned appropriately for a gas station, Arco could sell CNG to other public agencies and to private citizens with CNG-powered cars.

The town would buy CNG from Arco for more than it would have paid at a town-owned CNG station, Baker said. On the other hand, the town wouldn't have to pay for maintenance and operation of the CNG station with Arco running it, Baker added.

"All in all, I think it's a better deal for the town," Baker said.

The zoning might also make council approval easier to get than it was for the Lark-Winchester site.

Mayor Joanne Benjamin, who has opposed placement of gas stations and the CNG station in residential neighborhoods, said the corner looks to her like a good place for both.

"I think it would fit more the criteria we were looking for," Benjamin said.

The site is perfect for a gas station, according to Hirsch: It's at the confluence of Los Gatos Boulevard, Bascom Avenue and Highway 85.

A Shell gas station formerly occupied the two parcels Hirsch wants to build on, he said, but the station closed down at a time when Highway 85 hadn't opened and Bascom Avenue was just two lanes.

Hirsch owns a gas station in San Jose and used to operate a Shell station at Blossom Hill Road and Los Gatos Boulevard.

In the short term, Baker hopes to install slow-fill outlets at the Miles Avenue corporation yard, so town vehicles can be filled overnight. A slow-fill outlet would cost $30,000 and would fill a car in four to six hours. The pressurized tanks proposed for the Arco station would fill a car's tank within a few minutes.

That would allow the town to have its own filling station until Hirsch builds the Arco, and the slow-fill outlets would not require the controversial high-pressure tanks of compressed gas. They operate with normal pressure in PG&E gas lines.

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