Photo by Monique Schoenfeld, Town Crier
Doug and Sandi Farnham stand outside the proposed Main Street site of Mailboxes Etc. Doug Farnham said he's "90 percent sure" he won't open after a council urgency ordinance triggered a moratorium that discounted his application.
Town Crier Staff Writer
After months of negotiating with the planning department, and on the heels of an unusual urgency ordinance moratorium, it looks like Mailboxes Etc., a business service center, will not be coming to downtown Los Altos.
"I'm 90 percent sure I'm not going forward," said Doug Farnham, who had applied to the city for a permit to open a business at 171 Main St.
After the city's planning department OK'd Farnham's plans on April 8, council members said at a Los Altos City Council meeting May 11 that a mailing service business is not a permitted use in the retail core of Los Altos. Farnham, city officials said, would be opening at his peril.
"We cannot take that chance," he said.
"Mailboxes Etc. is not a mailing service, but a service center. It's a destination business," Farnham said.
According to a Mailbox Etc. flier, the business offers mailbox rental, UPS shipping, custom packaging, copies, fax, notary, office supplies, shipping supplies, rubber stamps and metered mail.
The city's planning staff had approved Farnham's plans, after turning him down three times, as long as he maintained a "display of retail items for sale" within the store windows facing Main Street, staff said.
Senior planner Jim Mackenzie said "the staff decided there were enough retail components," to Mailboxes Etc., and that mailing services was incidental. "A lot of businesses have incidental uses, such as businesses storing merchandise. Yet warehousing is not permitted downtown," Mackenzie said.
In an April 8 letter informing Farnham of staff approval, Mackenzie told him his next step was to apply for a building permit for tenant improvements. Mackenzie thanked Farnham for his "cooperation in maintaining the pedestrian-oriented retail character of downtown Los Altos."
Four of the five council members disagreed.
"Nowhere is (mailing services) listed as a permitted use. If it's not a permitted use, its permit cannot be relied on," said Councilman Francis La Poll.
Councilman John Moss raised concerns about parking and UPS trucks blocking traffic on Main Street.
At the April 27 council meeting, the first meeting after council members learned the business had staff approval, the council voted 4-1 for an urgency ordinance moratorium on mailing services until a public hearing at the May 11 meeting.
According to state law, a legislative body should not adopt an interim zoning ordinance except "to protect the public safety, health and welfare."
Councilwoman Kris Casto did not support the moratorium. "Mailboxes Etc. is a retail establishment. It's not good to countermand what the business community worked for," she said.
Business leaders were outraged that the council would step in with an urgency moratorium when a business had already been approved.
"That gives a bad message to business owners," said Julie Rose, executive director of the Los Altos Chamber of Commerce.
The Los Altos Village Association, local attorney Ken Kaye, the presidents of the Chamber and LAVA, and other business people, sent letters of objection to the council over the moratorium.
"It is unfair to the applicant," said Bob Hatch, president of LAVA. "And it gives support to the claim that Los Altos is hostile to the business community... By this single action, the council would undo years of effort by the staff," Hatch said in a letter to the mayor.
"Maybe we need guidelines out there that are clear," said Councilman King Lear, "and not go in after the fact."
The moratorium expired after the May 11 meeting. But the council directed the staff to initiate a zoning and design study of mailing and other service uses in the downtown commercial district.
After the study, if the city decides they're not going to permit mailing services, the city "could yank our permit," Farnham said. "I feel like the rug's been pulled out from under me. I had done everything as called for in the ordinance. I thought I had it all worked out."