Los Gatos Weekly-Times

News

University Ave. housing plan is approved

By Judy Peterson

One of the few pockets of town designated for high-density residential development may instead be getting two new single-story family homes. At the same time, an historic pre-1941 home on the site will be preserved.

The property in question is at 506 University Ave. at Towne Terrace. Heading south from Highway 9, both sides of University Avenue are lined with single-family homes. But Towne Terrace marks the dividing line between homes and apartments. On one side of Towne Terrace is the pre-1941 home. The other side is where the University Terrace Apartments are located.

As the Los Gatos Planning Commission wrestled with the idea of allowing homes to be built on property zoned for high-density housing, University Avenue residents weighed in with their views.

"Having the three single-story homes really does make the neighborhood more consistent with what it really is now, what it has been for years," said Lois Morrison-Keffer.

Town staff, on the other hand, recommended saving the historic home and retaining the multi-family zoning. Under that scenario, the combined number of housing units would be anywhere from three to five.

One of the sticking points in the discussion was the size of the lot. It is approximately 14,948 square feet. But individual lots in this area must be at least 5,000 square feet, so the developer technically needed another 52 square feet to build the three single-family houses he wanted. As an alternative, developer Dennis Lowery asked for a variance so one of the lots could be smaller than 5,000 square feet.

A further complication arose because to subdivide the property for any type of development, the front of the historic home would have to be rotated to face Towne Terrace. That cost of rotating the home is why Lowery argued against building multi-family housing.

"In a multi-family unit, you have additional parking that you need, and with that parking you're most likely going to build a podium [multi-story] product because you must not only have parking for the structures but additional parking. That ends up shrinking the units," Lowery said. "As you shrink these units, the cost goes down because it's a smaller house. You start to pay a little bit more for a bigger house, a little bit less for a smaller house. And so you begin to add the burden of moving and restoring a [pre-1941] house under these smaller units and it becomes a bigger percentage or, if you will, a greater burden."

Commissioner John Bourgeois argued, though, that the need for multi-family housing outweighed the developer's financial risk. "I challenge anyone to find a place where we're going to gain back high density," Bourgeois said. "We have very few areas in town that are high density. If we look at our General Plan, we look at our housing element, the first goal of our housing element says to expand the housing opportunities for all economic segments of the community through a variety of housing types and sizes, including a mixture of ownership and rental opportunities."

Commissioner Marico Sayoc sided with Bourgeois, but the majority voted to change the property's high-density zoning and permit the single-family homes. Because it is such an unusual recommendation, the town council must also approve the zoning change.