Saratoga News

Council decides to officially change Measure G policy

Applicants must go first to city

By Sarah Lombardo

If you're looking to change land-use designation or the density of property in Saratoga, you'll soon have to send your project through the city's approval process first and then take it to a citywide vote, according to the city's new policy on Measure G.

The council agreed July 7 that it would officially reverse its original policy of letting applicants choose whether to send general plan changes to a vote first or through the city's Planning Department. But councilmembers also instructed staff to look into drafting guidelines for exceptions to be made for what Councilmember Paul Jacobs called, "the person who gets caught in the rule, so to speak."

What councilmembers said they wanted to avoid were cases such as Saratoga resident Bob Binkley's lot-line adjustment, which was the first test case for Measure G in 1996. Binkley had applied to move the lot lines between his two parcels of land so that the smaller parcel would be made slightly larger and more appealing to potential buyers. It would have been a simple administrative decision, but the property straddled two separate land-use designation areas--which made the adjustment a change to the city's general plan and subject to Measure G. Although the change would not increase the density of the property--either way, only one house could be built on the land--Binkley had to spend thousands of dollars putting his lot-line adjustment on the November 1996 ballot.

The slow-growth initiative was the brainchild of a number of local residents--including current Vice-Mayor Jim Shaw and councilmember Stan Bogosian--who said they were fed up with what they called unchecked development in the city. It requires a vote of the people for any change to the city's general plan when the change results in increased density for the land or a more intense use. The initiative passed resoundingly in March 1996.

Councilmembers at the time, however, said that it would be unfair for all projects to have to go through the expense of gaining approval from the city when the general plan change could be voted down by the people anyway. Supporters of Measure G disagreed and insisted that all projects go through the city's process first so that voters would know what they would be allowing with their votes. So, the city compromised and voted to let applicants choose which they would face first, the voters or the Planning Commission.

But in March, San Jose-based developer Barry Swenson applied for a general plan change for land on Quito Road and opted to go straight to the ballot. Swenson needed the land-use change because he hoped to build an assisted living complex at 13686 Quito Road. Rough plans for the project included 80 to 120 units on the 2.6-acre parcel.

The City Council refused to place the item on the November ballot, saying that they wanted residents to have the benefit of staff reports and the Planning Commission's input before voting. The decision was a complete reversal of the council's original policy.

The council proposed focusing on the density of a proposed project to determine whether a project must first go through the city process. "Perhaps as an alternative, if it doesn't have to do with human density, the council has the option to send the project straight to the electorate," Bogosian said. "But if there is an increase, then it must go through the process first."

"We ought to have some sort of out for the unusual circumstance," Jacobs said.

Staff is expected to come back to the council Sept. 8 with draft guidelines for the city's new implementation policy.

But not all councilmembers felt the reversal of policy is a good one. "The simplicity of the original implementation had its benefits," Mayor Don Wolfe said. "To superregulate beyond reason, I'm not sure that's our job as a council."

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