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Published on 02/23/1998 All articles from this issue

Wealthy head for the 'Hills'

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By Carol Tiegs

Town Crier Staff Writer

But can town accommodate them without compromising its rural environment?

In the mid-1950s, threatened by encroaching development and wanting "to hang on to an image," residents of what today is Los Altos Hills reluctantly banded together and incorporated as a township.

Summing up the incorporation cause at a pre-incorporation meeting, resident and noted author Wallace Stegner said, "After all, ladies and gentlemen, we are only trying to save God's little acre."

"We want the sun and air and quiet of a community which has given itself enough space to breathe in; the relaxed pace of country life and rural pursuits - rabbits, dogs, chickens, sheep, cattle, horses..." an incorporation campaign leaflet said.

Not long before Stegner's 1993 accidental death in a car accident, Ramona Chown, a resident of the town since 1965, spoke with him about the town. "He was very disappointed and discouraged about how things had developed," Chown said.

Town residents love the peaceful life in Los Altos Hills. It's attracting new residents daily.

Planning Director Curtis Williams said the town has received 35-40 building permit applications annually over the last three years, double the number for the early 1990s.

And yet disappointment, discouragement and dissension are palpable.

"Los Altos Hills is losing its soul," said Chown and her daughter-in-law Valerie Chown in a Town Crier interview.

At issue is how the town can preserve its rural environment while accommodating residents' property rights and their changing desires and concerns.

It plays out in debates over house size and details of design, predictability of planning review and value of off-road pathways.

"When we came here in 1965 they used to joke that there were 3,000 people and 4,000 horses," said Councilman and Mayor pro tem Bob Johnson. "It was a community of 3,000-square-foot ranch houses and known as a horse community."

But, Johnson said, according to a February 1989 town survey, only 7 percent of residents at the time had horses. "Now there are empty stables in people's yards," he said.

People moving to Los Altos Hills today are largely "affluent young people whose interests are not the same as those who originally came here," Johnson said. He stressed that new people want to retain the town's rural atmosphere, too, "but their concept of gracious living is slightly more elaborate."

"There's a trend of younger families - Silicon Valley employees getting their stock options - building large houses," Williams said. "It's probably pretty hard to call many of these houses rural. They tend to dominate the landscape more."

Williams said one-third of current building projects involve tearing down existing homes. And, he said, at least 50 percent of new homes in town are built by members of racial and ethnic minority groups.

"We have to be sensitive," Williams said. "They have cultural preferences about how their homes are laid out. They want to accommodate extended families."

Architect Mark Gobey, who has designed several Los Altos Hills homes, said the trend today is to Old World designs including French chateau and Italian-Mediterranean. Families want spaces that weren't necessary in earlier homes, he said, including separate rooms for high-tech entertainment systems, four-car garages and at-home offices for telecommuters.

"The last house I did had both a his and hers office," he said.

"The value of land has reached a point where rebuilding is going to be a constant thing," said 32-year town resident Ralph Vetterlein. He said he's received calls from individuals who just want to buy his property.

"They don't care about the home on it, they don't even want to see it," he said. "They just want the land."

With lots at a premium, people will buy and attempt to build on anything they can get.

"The problem now is people are building on the hardest-to-build-on lots," said Carol Gottlieb, chairwoman of the town's planning commission. "They're lots that perhaps never should have been lots."

And what new residents want to build on those lots is big.

Gobey's last two homes in Los Altos Hills were 6,000 square feet each on one-acre sites.

The Chowns are distressed about two spec homes (built without a buyer) of 4,950 and 4,900 square feet excluding basement that their neighbors across the valley plan to build in the valley below the Chowns' two homes on Moon Lane off Page Mill Road.

"They are the biggest houses on the smallest, steepest, most exposed lots (in the subdivision)," Valerie Chown said. "Grading will take about 450 truckloads of dirt."

The Chowns and several of their neighbors have argued that both the size and design of the spec homes is incompatible with the Moon Lane neighborhood. They feel the town has not adhered its design guidelines concerning neighborhood compatibility.

"We support their right to build," Valerie said, noting that her husband Tim actually helped neighbors Janet Vitu and Evan Wythe with their initial subdivision process. "But it's a matter of balancing rights. The guidelines are that (homes) are supposed to be compatible with the neighborhood. We don't feel the guidelines have been lived up to."

The planning commission had twice denied Vitu and Wythe's request for a building permit. On second appeal, the town council approved the permit request Feb. 18 following some reduction in size and change in exterior treatment by the architect.

"Newer people tell us this will increase our property values," said Ramona Chown. "I tell them it's not about money, it's about lifestyle."

The Los Altos Hills Planning Commission has received a fair share of criticism and two to four cases typically appear for review on each town council agenda. Residents considering remodeling their homes have as many concerns as those building new homes.

"People follow the rules and then are told something else (by the planning commission)," said 28-year resident Katharine Alexander after observing a number of commission and council meetings. "Finally (the applicants) say 'just make a decision so we can appeal it.' Council usually approves the appeal. That's not a businesslike way to do it."

"Now people are not sure what they can build. We need rules that apply to everyone and that people know ahead of time," Alexander said.

The town council and planning commission have held two study sessions to clarify policy on a baker's dozen design issues. A third meeting will be scheduled.

Johnson said a challenge to the town and an item of his platform is "to make the development process more predictable."

"We're here to help the citizen through the difficult task of building and remodel," he said.

City council has taken its own share of criticism, for inconsistency, for micro-management and for being out of touch with residents' desires. An outdoor lighting policy adopted 4-1 by council in September is a case in point, according to Alexander. And it's not necessarily an issue of old vs. new residents, she said.

"The lighting regulations are too officious and dangerous," she said. "Neighbors tell her they are scared to walk at night."

"This is putting totally uncalled for restrictions on what we can do with our lighting," said resident John Knox-Smith of the ordinance that addresses the number of lights on the exterior of a structure, path and driveway lighting, down- and uplighting of trees, and spotlights.

The town's off-road pathway plan has also brought some longtime and new residents together in opposition.

"The pathways should not be an end in themselves," said 16-year resident Shari Emling. "The should be useful and logical, and not interfere with residents' privacy."

Emling is a resident who feels that, overall, housing growth has been "good for the town" and that the "council and planning commission have handled it well. Discussions and disagreements are more productive now than they were 10 years ago."

A Nov. 5, 1997 hearing on a portion of the pathway plan resulted in three hours of resident input, both pro and con.

"The town has changed in 20 years," said resident Mike Elliott, who told of people hunting deer on his property and off-road paths that look into people's back windows.

With every issue before the town council comes a request for council members to check community opinion.

"They need to find out what this community really wants," said Alexander. She mentioned the efforts of the newly revitalized Los Altos Civic Association in working for a town survey.

In a survey the association conducted last year, 94 percent of respondents said they would like the town to conduct a survey to provide broad-based input to the council, according to association spokesperson Shelley Doran. Mayor Toni Casey also supports town surveys on the issues.

Residents also call for more notice of meetings on issues affecting use of their property.

"The weakest link in government in Los Altos Hills has been communicating information to our residents," Johnson said. "A project dear to my heart is to see the town move seamlessly into the information age."

But obtaining information doesn't equate to reaching agreement. The civic association also receives its share of criticism.

"We are not trying to change how the town is, but to keep it from becoming more restrictive," Doran said in the association's defense. "We're for protecting property rights as they stand now."

"Everybody has property rights. I would like to see people talk about responsibilities as well as property rights," Vetterlein said. "If they did that they'd find a way to work together."

"I would like to see more people come in with horses," Emling said.

Hopefully there is room for everyone in "God's little acre."