Saratoga News

Woman musters opposition to Mountain Winery's plans

By Sarah Lombardo

Saratoga resident Virginia Miller-Lohr wonders where all the parents are.

The Pierce Road resident is trying to rally neighbors to mount opposition to expansion plans at the Mountain Winery.

Miller-Lohr said she fears traffic on Pierce, one of two access roads up to the winery, will increase to the point of becoming dangerous for children, bicyclists, joggers and horseback riders who use the residential street. "It has a lot of uses for a rural, narrow, winding road," she said. "The expansion is going to put more traffic on Pierce Road, and it's only the traffic of the [concert] attendees."

Proposed plans for the Mountain Winery include adding a number of wedding groves to the area, increasing concert bowl seating from 1,750 to 2,500, improvements to meet fire codes and the construction of a helicopter landing pad for emergency and firefighting operations.

"The more events they have, the more services they will need," Miller-Lohr said. And that means more service vehicles making their way up to the winery via Pierce and Congress Springs roads.

But Miller-Lohr said she had also been a bit disappointed with the low attendance at recent neighborhood meetings about the proposed expansion.

According to Dan Orloff, president of Orloff/Williams and Co., the San Jose public relations firm representing the winery in the environmental-review process, the project's draft environmental impact report is scheduled to be completed by late October. But Hugh Graham, principal planner with Santa Clara County's Planning Department, said the draft report will probably not be ready for public review and comment until December. It was initially slated for release this month.

Orloff chalked up the delay to extra time needed by consultants to detail plans, and take into account comments already received from residents.

"We are taking some extra care right now," he said. "There's no hurry to do this wrong."

Orloff said officials are also aware of neighbors' traffic concerns, and plan to try a number of traffic-control methods designed to get concert-goers into the concerts--and off Pierce Road--before any trouble starts.

Residents will have 45 days after the release of the draft report to submit comments. But the city may not have any more control over the expansion than that. Although the winery's entrance and about 75 acres of the land is in Saratoga city limits, the majority of the land and the winery itself are under county jurisdiction--and county planning commissioners will have the final yea or nay on the project.

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