Facts on Albright Way – Response to LesLi Logan

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LGCA Reply:

December 16, 2011
To Ms. Logan: The LGCA purpose is to keep the community informed of the cumulative effect of all the developments in Los Gatos, ideally before they’re developed. We were concerned that the Albright project did not follow the letter nor intent of the law, so we started reviewing all projects and most importantly, their cumulative effect on the town.

My last letter was to let people know that we believe the new developments on our current list (www.lg-ca.com ) total an additional 35,500 plus cars, EVERYDAY, on the streets of Los Gatos. 5000 of those come from the Albright Way development if developed to 550,000 square feet of office. We also want you to know the other developments will add over 300 students to the system in (roughly) 4-5 years. Additionally, because of SB 1381, it’s going to cost the schools more money as that senate bill is expected to add another ~30 pre-kindergarteners to the system next year.

Where will they put the kids with the presently overloaded school system? How many of us are going to pay more and more parcel taxes for schools as the town is allowed to grow? It’s like a dog chasing it’s tail. First, bring in the kids and the people, then the cars and the traffic……… then what? The problem with this town is that it’s couched into the hills with roads that can’t be widened, and no property large enough to build another school. The council majority* relies on SB 50 that says they can’t consider schools by law. However, ask Ms. Paulides or Ms. Abbati if SB 50 covers the cost of each additional student? It doesn’t. The council and we as citizens have to stand up for what’s right by screaming and shouting at the state legislature.

Your letter implies the town did an Environmental Impact Report (EIR), but they only did an environmental review, and then mitigated almost everything. Albright is currently the single largest development in the town; the council majority* did not want to put up story poles nor balloons to give the public a visual concept of the building heights. That concerned us. We also felt the traffic study was jury-rigged**. Grosvenor is planning on an EIR for the North Forty. As large as Albright is, we questioned why they did not have to do one also.

You mentioned that the planning commission approved the project. To a lesser degree, they did, but added conditions the council majority* ignored. Those recommendations were “no residential” and “no higher than 55 feet”. The general plan says 35 feet. The developer had 85’ approved by the council majority*. We question that judgment given the huge traffic impact on the north end of town.

You are not the only one that may misunderstand the process. I don’t. It seems extraordinarily complicated and when you can bend zoning ordinances with something called a PD (Planned Development***) which is one reason we felt the need to keep citizens informed. Use of the PD seems to make the zoning ordinances arbitrary. This is the main reason we feel that Los Gatos is being over-developed and over-densified.

We love Los Gatos and we love Netflix, but the costs associated with development, specifically traffic and schools – need to be fully understood before jumping into the “develop-for-taxes” mentality.

Development has its pluses, but it will cost you and I more commute time, more pollution and more frustration getting around a town that has crowded schools and streets already.

We all love the small town character of Los Gatos. With the current developments, that character will disappear. We don’t like that direction.

• * The council majority is Mr. Pirzinski, Ms. McNutt and Mr. Rice. The minority in many of the development issues have been Ms. Spector and Mr. Leonardis. In this instance, Albright, the majority is these three people.
• ** How could they jury rig a traffic study? They did an actual traffic count, but didn’t feel the actual traffic reflected the traffic that should have been there……….so they apparently raised the base. That in turn cut the increase from about 5000 to 3126.
• ***Planned Development (PD). All of the projects on our list are a result of the town using the Planned Development concept. We think it is not being used as originally intended. There will be more written on the PD in the next month.

Requesting that Quintana drop her lawsuit
After reading Mr. [Jak] Van Nada’s letter (“Running numbers on Albright Way and the North 40,” Nov. 29), I wanted all the Los Gatos Weekly-Times readers to know that having groups such as LGCA and We Support Los Gatos advocating for resident participation in decisions that affect all of us is a wonderful thing. This is exactly why We Support Los Gatos asked in an open letter to our community and LGCA to join us in ensuring that our community remains strong and vibrant by asking Lee Quintana to drop her lawsuit that is damaging Los Gatos.

Her lawsuit damages us all as it prohibits us from being able to retain one of our homegrown successes, Netflix, and from being able to attract the next successful company. The lawsuit is attempting to undo an environmental approval that was approved by our town council after multiple public hearings, a thorough review and a recommendation for approval from the planning commission. Her use of the law to meet her group’s personal objectives is just wrong.

Again, we would like to ask that Mr. Van Nada and LGCA members let Ms. Quintana know that her lawsuit has significant consequences that are far-reaching. For example, our schools have ever increasing growth. No students are generated from a new corporate headquarters; however, $1 million of new property tax is created every year regardless of who the company may be. This new recurring property tax revenue will go directly to our school districts’ general funds to help pay for teachers, curriculum and other programs that keep our schools the best in California and our property values high.

I hope we can count on all of Los Gatos, and especially LGCA, to help in asking Ms. Quintana to drop her lawsuit before there are more unintended consequences.

LezLi Logan

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