Special to the Town Crier
The Los Altos Hills Town Council failed to muster enough votes at its April 15 meeting to establish a fast-track site development review process as an urgency interim ordinance. As a result, the proposed interim ordinance will receive public hearing before the planning commission and then the town council before another council vote.
The fast-track process provides that projects conforming to the town rules, requiring no variances and meeting no substantive neighborhood opposition, will be reviewed by staff and passed directly to the council for final approval.
Decision to fast-track would be at the discretion of the planning director. The applicant must agree in writing to accept all proposed conditions of approval.
A four-fifths vote of the council is necessary to pass an urgency interim ordinance. Councilman Bill Siegel was absent April 15 and Councilwoman Elayne Dauber cast the dissenting vote. Dauber expressed concern for the burden the process would place on the planning director. She argued for creating thresholds for fast-track review based on a certain percentage of maximum floor area or a simple square-footage limit.
Mayor Bob Johnson, who worked with Councilwoman Toni Casey to develop the process, said he was "committed to voting on it as is," based on the level of compromise already involved. "The trick of good government is to provide solutions the largest number of people can live with," Johnson said.
"Staff believes that the proposed ordinance and process is workable, and would offer an opportunity to move 'clean' projects through the process quickly," said Planning Director Curtis Williams in his report to the council.
"It would hopefully also create some incentive for applicants to design projects to more fully comply with town regulations and to meet with neighbors early to address potential concerns."
In other council news, approximately two dozen neighbors turned out April 15 to protest developer John Vidovich's request to modify storm water runoff in the upper Hale Creek watershed into a lake on the Neary Quarry subdivision. Vidovich agreed to submit the question to an environmental impact review process.
The council also heard a presentation from SunTel Communications. The firm proposes to purchase Sun Country Cable, the town's cable franchise holder, and to take over the provision of service.
The management team of SunTel will remain essentially the same as for Sun Country Cable.
According to David Kinley of SunTel, the firm's objectives include expanding channel capacity for new services, expanding the high-speed Internet offering and preparing to launch digital service.
Larry Howe told the council that Sun Cable received 74 responses to a survey about its service. Program quality and quantity was the top concern, he said.
Residents also expressed concerns about reception and reliability, customer service, price-value and Internet service.
The firm will return to the council in May with more information about service upgrades, and the financial aspects of the sale.
The council agreed to postpone a discussion of the process for review of the town's color board to a future meeting.
The color board outlines approved exterior and roof colors for new construction and remodels. Questions have arisen as to whether the color board applies to roofs and what reflective standard is appropriate for roofing.
The staff has also identified questions as to how long an approved exterior color must be retained and whether to limit or prohibit certain combinations of colors from the color board.