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Published on 05/25/1998 All articles from this issue

Neighbors urge code enforcement of Sunkist cottage

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By Joanne Griffith Domingue

Town Crier Staff Writer

After being urged by neighbors to enforce second-living-unit codes for a Sunkist Lane cottage, Los Altos City Council members agreed to address the issue at their June 9 meeting.

According to Los Altos resident Peter Sorenson, "There are clear code violations." Sorenson, who spoke at the May 26 council meeting, lives next door to the second living unit. He cited the issue of ingress and egress from Sunkist Lane, and that "all entrances must be hidden from view."

Sorenson said he had petitions signed by 200 people who were concerned about the cottage.

"The city can do a better job of enforcing," he said.

The second-living-unit cottage was built in 1997 at the same time as the main house on a curiously shaped lot that fronts on Avalon Drive but has a rear thumb of land that extends through to Sunkist Lane.

The SLU sits near Sunkist Lane but is fenced from the street and has an Avalon Drive address and mailbox. The city code states that "entrances to a second living unit shall be screened from the street view."

No doors to the cottage are visible from Sunkist Lane. But there are two gates in the wooden fence between Sunkist and the cottage, one for pedestrians and one that is wide enough for a car.

As far as the tenants entering the cottage on foot from Sunkist Lane, interim city manager Bill Zaner said there is "nothing to prohibit people to cross over a rear lot line with permission of the property owner. They may walk over it. They may not drive a vehicle over it."

In 1997 the city council denied a variance to allow the cottage to face Sunkist, and voted that "the second living unit shall relate to Avalon Drive, for both ingress and egress," according to the minutes of the Feb. 25, 1997, council meeting.

Now, in the neighborhood, "There is a substantial disagreement over what access means," Zaner said.

Tenants moved into the cottage May 19, Sorenson told the council, and come and go daily from Sunkist Lane.

The driveway from Avalon to the cottage has not been built.

"The use permit demands it, the plans show it, and the owner says he will do it," Zaner said.

Currently there is no way for the tenants to get a car from Avalon to the cottage.

Zaner said there is nothing to prohibit a person from legally parking on a street.

Last Wednesday a Sunkist resident said, regarding the cottage occupants, "I hope now that they're in, we can all get along because now we're neighbors."