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Published on 04/27/1998 All articles from this issue

A 'time-out' for San Antonio Hills

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Editorial

Even with all the talk about building standards and enforcement in the San Antonio Hills area of unicorporated Los Altos, it may come as something of a surprise that the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors is considering a building moratorium for the region.

Apparently, such an action would result from talks some homeowners have had with county Supervisor Joe Simitian about out-of-control building - houses too large for their historic, legal, under-sized lots, lots that today would not meet the minimum lot size.

Currently, county guidelines applied to the area allow for such development. Members of the San Antonio Hills Homeowners Association, who felt unsupported by the county, took matters into their own hands by taking some of their big-building neighbors to court.

We see a temporary moratorium as a good thing because it offers a "time out" in which representatives from both sides of the issue can work out a new set of design guidelines reflective of the majority of tastes in the neighborhood. Such guidelines could save the association and their defendants a lot of dollars in attorney's fees that could be better spent on neighborhood improvements, to say nothing of building a friendly neighborhood.