By Clarence Cromwell
Saratogans with property adjacent to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows retirement home may have 168 more neighbors a decade from now, but those near the southern parcel will enjoy a bit of open space.
Minutes before midnight on Feb. 21, the City Council unanimously accepted a development agreement with the Odd Fellows. The contract proposes a change in the city's general plan, a conditional-use permit for the retirement home, an environmental impact report, and the designs of the proposed facilities. This means that, within 10 years, the Odd Fellows campus can grow from 170 housing units to 307 and from 68 to 99 nursing beds.
The contract was not required, but Odd Fellows attorney Linda Callon asked for it to extend the Odd Fellows' right to build for the next 10 years, eight years beyond the original two years allowed. Callon later said it should also protect the development from any effects of Measure G, should the anti-growth initiative pass on the March 26 ballot.
The council also accepted a provision, added to the contract by the Planning Commission one week before, that will require the Odd Fellows to dedicate most of its 10.6-acre southern parcel as open space. Neighbors expressed concern that project plans may be changed later to include more houses or a completely different, more dense project on that parcel.
The order will keep a narrow band across the center, shaped like the cul-de-sac proposed.
Even if plans change, the cookie-cutter open space area won't allow a project larger than the 11 duplex cottages proposed in the Odd Fellows' master plan. The Odd Fellows can renovate its existing 85-year-old residence building and construct a new nursing facility as soon as the open space is dedicated.
"What we're really looking for is that density of development," Vice Mayor Gillian Moran said.
The council struck a section of the contract, also proposed by the Planning Commission, that could have held up most of the proposed project if the cottages are not built as detailed in the Odd Fellows master plan. The passage required that the 11 cottages on the 10.6-acre parcel be built and ready to occupy before the city would issue building permits for two new apartment buildings and eight other cottages.
Councilmembers Ann Marie Burger and Mayor Paul Jacobs said the Odd Fellows should have the option of finishing the project without building any cottages on the southern parcel.
Burger said the passage didn't "consider economic realities over 10 years. It isn't rational."
The contract included other minor provisions.
The council also retained a passage requiring the Odd Fellows to give Saratoga residents preference over non-residents in admissions policy.
The council wants the Odd Fellows private drive merged with parallel San Marcos Road, another private street. The roads intersect Fruitvale Avenue close together, and city planners fear accidents when traffic increases due to the Odd Fellows expansion.
The Odd Fellows don't have to buy a $300,000 ladder truck for the Saratoga Fire District. Fire Chief Ernie Kraule and a lawyer for the district said such a truck is needed to furnish adequate fire protection for the proposed three-story apartments, and they said the Odd Fellows should pay for it.
Jacobs likened the request to asking each new citizen to pay for a police car for his or her neighborhood.
Measure G threatens to derail the development, if approved by voters on the March 26 ballot. The measure would require a public vote for any development increasing density or intensity of land use. It also would require a vote before the city could redesignate residential or open-space land to a more dense classification.
The measure's language says it will affect any project approved after Nov. 2, 1995, although the legality of that provision was questioned by City Attorney Michael Riback.
All the council decisions, except approval of the EIR, require routine adoption at the next council meeting, March 6.
This article appeared in the Saratoga News, February 28, 1996.
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