Saratoga News

Photograph by Robert Scheer

Paul Jacobs addresses a group of Greenbelt cyclists anxious to start their second day.

County, West Valley cities cooperate for green foothills

By Julie Mehta

The issue of unincorporated hillside preservation is a difficult one for many local communities, but four West Valley municipalities and Santa Clara County are closing in on a joint long-range plan to simplify it.

For over a year, officials from Saratoga, Cupertino, Los Gatos, Monte Sereno and the county have been creating a plan to help maintain the county hillsides' natural character by setting common policies on limiting the expansion of urban development into hillside areas, minimizing the visual impact of hillside development and making land-use decisions.

Officials working on the West Valley Hillside Preservation Strategy came together April 18 at a Los Gatos news conference sponsored by the Greenbelt Alliance to speak about their effort to curtail urban sprawl. The event coincided with an annual seven-day, 460-mile Bay Area bike tour in the hills. At issue is a continuous strip of some 13,000 acres, most of it unincorporated county land that includes some parks but is mostly privately held.

"We believe that joint planning will succeed far more than if we, as individual cities, try alone to secure the hills outside our respective borders," said Saratoga Mayor Paul Jacobs of the plan. Other speakers included Monte Sereno Mayor Nancy Hobbes, Los Gatos Vice-Mayor Joanne Benjamin, Cupertino City Councilman Wally Dean, county Supervisor Mike Honda and county Planning Commissioner Brent Ventura of Los Gatos.

Vicki Moore, associate policy director of the Greenbelt Alliance, said the intent of the plan is not to ban further development or change basic zoning provisions, but instead to make new buildings blend in with the scenery. "We're looking at implementing limits on house height and size, colors and landscaping. We want to improve the standards so that any further development will be less visually obtrusive and not have a significant impact on the environment," Moore said.

The seed for this plan was planted in a passage in Cupertino's 1993 General Plan that called for the city to seek a joint hillside preservation agreement. Subsequently, the county's 1994 General Plan specifically encouraged regional hillside preservation planning. Planners from all communities involved began meeting at least once a month to craft a document.

"These policies are meant to stick and are designed to withstand political pressure," said Moore, who pointed out that it's much harder for developers to sway five united parties than a single city.

She said the plan could help protect 4,000 acres of the hillside area that were identified as "at-risk" for development in a recent Greenbelt Alliance study. These include 600 acres owned by the Paul Masson Winery, near Saratoga, and 3,600 acres owned by the Kaiser Quarry, near Cupertino. She said the plan also will encourage acquisition of more hillside lands for permanent open-space protection. Similar plans have already been passed in Alameda and Solano counties.

So far, work on the plan has moved along slowly but smoothly, says Saratoga Associate Planner George White. Currently, he says people can build almost any type of house they want in the county's hillsides. Losing that freedom may mean opposition from residents. The agreement's authors plan to hold public hearings after completing the plan's first draft later this year, according to White. They hope to get approval of a final plan by all the city councils and the County Board of Supervisors by the end of the year.

Morgan Hill and San Jose also have recently formed their own individual hillside preservation agreements with the county.