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Published on 07/24/1995 All articles from this issue

Hope for permanent closure of St. Joseph Avenue

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By Jan Shaw

Special to the Town Crier

Diocese, Los Altos and Cupertino try for settlements

St. Joseph Avenue residents are hoping their narrow, rural Los Altos road will be permanently closed to traffic from a proposed 178-home development on nearby Cupertino land owned by the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Jose.

The hope stems from three separate actions last week:

• The Rev. Michael Mitchell, vicar general of the Diocese, reiterated the diocese's decision from last month to keep the road closed at the same time it announced plans to drop a lawsuit against Cupertino over the proposed development because negotiations were positive;

• The Cupertino Planning Commission voted 3-2 to approve zoning law changes for the proposed development, without requiring St. Joseph Avenue access. The Cupertino City Council is slated take final action this Monday and may or may not require St. Joseph to be opened;

• An agreement to delay further legal action between Los Altos and the diocese in hopes they can reach a negotiated settlement on the use, or non-use, of St. Joseph Avenue. Judge Christopher Cottle, presiding justice of the state Court of Appeal for the Sixth Appellate District, signed a court order last week that delays for six months Los Altos' appeal of the diocese's successful lawsuit to open the road.

Los Altos City Attorney Bob Booth and Mayor Bob Gray said there is still work to be done.

"Certainly, the impression we have is that Father Mitchell and the diocese fully recognize the concerns of our residents who live on and around St. Joseph Avenue," Gray said. "We're pleased it appears we are arriving at a solution that will prohibit any traffic from the diocese development from going into St. Joseph."

Booth said the city needs legal guarantees of the diocese's stated intention to keep the road closed.

But that depends on Cupertino, Mitchell said.

"We believe that we can develop the property without access to St. Joseph Road," he said. "However, you must realize we are in another jurisdiction and what we believe and what we want may not be what we get.

"The City of Cupertino could say that we have to use it," he said. "I don't believe that is their position but it is not clear because we haven't received a final determination from them."

Booth also wants to work with The Forum, a large retirement development also located on adjacent land, regarding its right to create an access road to St. Joseph.

Still at issue is Cristo Rey Drive, the area's main road. It spans both Los Altos and Cupertino.

Los Altos planner Jim Mackenzie said Cristo Rey is heavily used and Los Altos has been lobbying to require a new access road onto Stevens Creek Boulevard through Cupertino land so that residents on the Los Altos stretch won't be overwhelmed by additional traffic.

Mitchell said traffic studies show the road can carry the traffic and there is no need for a new road onto Stevens Creek.

The diocese land, encompassing 208 acres surrounding the former St. Joseph's Seminary, is one of the largest remaining undeveloped hillside parcels in the West Valley.

Open space advocates, Cupertino city officials and Los Altos officials have been wrangling over its future for about five years, ever since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake forced the closure of the seminary.

One of the diocese's two current proposals calls for 178 homes. If Cupertino approves that number, diocese officials said they will dedicate 65 percent of the land as open space. The second proposal is to build 116 homes but leave the rest of the property in private hands, with the possibility of additional development.

The 1993 Cupertino general plan allows for 36 homes to be built.

The land is visible from Highway 280 and is adjacent to the Rancho San Antonio County Park and Open Space Preserve, part of which was owned by the diocese until it sold the land to the county as open space under threat of condemnation, Mitchell said.