Los Gatos Weekly-Times Toll House gets a nod from planning comission for its expansion plans Neighbors say they can live with hotel's latest proposal Next stop: Town Council By Jeff Kearns After several tries, the Toll House Hotel on Dec. 9 passed the first major hurdle in getting approval for its expansion, when the Planning Commission signed off on a revised design and passed the application on to the Town Council. Neighbors who had previously decried the proposal showed up to say they weren't necessarily in favor of the hotel's plan, but could live with it. The hotel hopes to add a total of 25 new rooms, eight of which will be in a small annex dubbed the west wing behind the main building. The other rooms will be added to the front of the building. Owner Wayne Levenfeld made it out of the meeting without having to modify the design, although he still needs to come back to the commission for architecture and site approval. Architect Dick Stowers says he's going for a look that's more compatible with the town. He wants to make minor changes to the front of the building, lower the towers in the front and redesign the entrance on S. Santa Cruz Avenue to make it more inviting to pedestrians. Pedestrian appeal is also what's behind the hotel's plan to spruce up the stretch of S. Santa Cruz in front of its doors, where Levenfeld envisions diagonal parking spaces and planter boxes similar to those on N. Santa Cruz. But the town's streetscape plan, which outlines how street improvements should be made, details a landscaped median strip, not planter boxes along the sidewalk. The commission passed the streetscape upgrade on to the council with the rest of the proposal. Any modifications to the streetscape plan would have to be authorized by the council. Because no specific details of the streetscape upgrade have been finalized yet, Levenfeld also offered the town $100,000 in lieu of doing the work himself. Traffic engineer Mark Wessel has already looked at the preliminary plan and said in a memo that the improvements would not create safety or circulation problems. By shrinking the size of the west wing, the redesign also freed up parking spaces and brought the project into compliance with parking requirements. Town code requires 168 spots for the project, which is exactly what Levenfeld plans to provide. Levenfeld also emphasized that about 40 percent of the hotel's guests arrive by shuttle bus, and don't use a car to get around town during their stay. Commission chairwoman Sandy Decker said that the expansion was compatible with the general and downtown specific plans, and was community-oriented and pedestrian friendly. "We'll see people downtown on their feet and hopefully spending money, which is also a community benefit," she said. The commission voted 5-0 for approval. Kathryn Morgan was absent, and Joe Pirzynsky has left his commission seat for one on the council. Two of the three neighbors who had been the most vocal opponents to the expansion wrote a letter in October, saying that the redesign was an acceptable compromise. The third, Peter Carter, whose Broadway home backs up to the hotel, said he was able to accept the expansion, but said that it should be viewed in a larger context. "This project is very tolerable," he said. "It's not anywhere near as offensive as it was when it was first proposed, but the fact remains, there are still some inherent problems in our town that will be contributed to by any expansions in town. The changes add up cumulatively." Carter pointed to the intensified development at the south end of the downtown area since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. He added that the town should wait one or two years before approving the expansion, or until the effects of projects like Old Town and Sue Farwell's mixed-use building are known. "Let's see if you can still drive around town," he said. [ Back to Contents Page | Los Gatos Weekly-Times Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, December 16, 1998. ©1998 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.