Housing and Rezoning Community Workshop Recap

By a resident contributor of Los Altos Hills

[Ed: Below is one resident's take on what transpired in the recent multi-family design standards meeting.]

​​​​

Scheduling, Objective and Agenda

With less than one week’s notice, the Town announced that a Housing and Rezoning Community Workshop would be held on Wednesday, September 25, 2024 from 5:00 to 7:00 P.M.  The advertisement in the Town Crier, published on the day of the meeting, stated that the interactive workshop would highlight the Zoning and Objective Design Standards.  Town representatives wold be available to discuss the rezoning process, design standards, project progress, and details related to the Environmental Impact Review (EIR).  The advertisement went on to state that the meeting agenda would be available on the Town website by the end of the day Monday, September 23, 2024.  A meeting notice appeared in the Friday, September 20, 2024 City Manager’s Weekly, and notices were mailed to those who lived within 500 feet of the Twin Oaks area to be rezoned.

​

The Meeting

There were roughly 30 residents in attendance, Mayor Mok, City Manager Pirnejad, Interim Community Development Director Bradford, a Michael Baker EIR specialist, and some members of the planning and administrative Town staff.  Display boards were set up around the room with views of the three sites to be rezoned and examples of different levels of development density.  A workshop space was setup in the rear conference room with small-scale pieces representing fixed areas of square footage designed to be placed on plot maps of the areas to be rezoned. The meeting was neither hosted on Zoom, nor live streamed. So only those physically present could participate.

​

Discussion

Mr. Bradford made his introductory remarks about the meeting objectives and introduced the Michael Baker representative in charge of the EIR CEQA report.  She explained the purpose of the EIR, the process, and the schedule and stated that this was the kick-off notice of the public scoping portion of the project and that comments were due by October 14, 2024.  At this point residents raised many questions and expressed frustration with the answers received from staff, the process and schedule.

​​

​

Concerns

Concerns expressed included but were not limited to:

• Lack of transparency

• Lack of notice

• Failure to explore other development options, benefit of ADU’s, other sites

• Likelihood of development at Foothill and St. Nicholis

• Real size of project at Twin Oaks development, 92 units or more

• Michael Baker studying siting hundreds of units at Twin Oaks

• Impact of housing at Twin Oaks on traffic, utilities, congestion, evacuation, etc.

• Building on slopes, use of LUF

• Town’s limited ability to control unit “bonuses” offered developers

• Scope of development for EIR has not been decided or disclosed.  Schedule is unreasonable.

• Could the housing element be changed

• Facts provided to residents were not correct.

• Discussion largely focused on Twin Oaks.  Questions about feasibility and likelihood of other sites.

​​

​

Conclusion

As a result of all the questions, concerns, opposition, and skepticism expressed in the meeting, the original meeting objectives were not completed.  The interactive, hands-on workshop was not conducted.  Staff agreed to a follow-up workshop on October 9th from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.

​​

​

Post Meeting

In the September 23 – 27 Weekly, published on Friday, September 27, 2024, the Town introduced “For the Record”, a new feature in the City Manager’s weekly updates, designed to cover important topics related to the Housing Element and its implementation.

​

In response to, “Why didn’t I hear about this?”, the Weekly states the Town has been talking about the Housing Element since January 19th, 2022.  That is true.  However, the Multifamily Zoning, Objective Design Standards and EIR work was supposed to commence in early 2023 after the Housing Element was certified. Unfortunately, the Town wasted 15 months, and the work just resumed in earnest in the last few months.  This delay compresses the available time for study and evaluation to complete the rezone and the associated Environmental Impact Report before the required January 2026 deadline imposed by Housing and Community Development.

​