Saratoga News

Photograph by Robert Scheer

The Kathryn Kennedy vineyard has a last harvest.

Kathryn Kennedy vineyard becomes site for 12 houses

Final plan creates two cul-de-sacs as access roads

By Sarah Lombardo

The fate of the Kathryn Kennedy vineyard and the road that dead-ends on either side of it, has finally been decided.

The Saratoga Planning Commission last Wednesday approved a subdivision plan for 12 lots on the 9.42-acre property. The plan creates two cul-de-sacs at each end of Paramount Drive, one off Pierce Road and one off Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road, and connects the cul-de-sacs with a pedestrian parkway and an emergency access road for fire department vehicles. The project is slated for final approval at the Oct. 23 Planning Commission meeting.

Although supported by Paramount Drive residents and the engineer representing the Kennedy family, Morey Abraham of Nolte and Associates Inc., the project goes against the city's original plan for the road, which called for Paramount to eventually be a through-access road. The issue of whether commissioners should approve a plan that goes against city plans created an outcry from residents who said their children's safety would be put at risk by the increased traffic a through-access road would bring.

Two public hearings and a study session were held on the issue in the weeks following the project's initial presentation to the commission in August. In the study session, four alternatives for the subdivision were worked out, two that connected Paramount and two that kept the cul-de-sacs. The city staff recommended adopting a plan that connected Paramount Drive and incorporated a traffic circle to keep speeds down on the road.

According to James Walgren, associate planner for the city, fire department officials also preferred a through-access plan because of concerns that emergency vehicles might be hampered by narrow turn-around areas in the cul-de-sacs. But Walgren said the alternative chosen, with an emergency road for fire vehicles, was considered adequate by fire department officials.

Walgren said the details regarding maintenance of the parkway surrounding the emergency road will be worked out within the next few weeks, but that upkeep would entail the involvement of residents.