By King Lear

Other Voices

One of my goals as the new mayor of Los Altos is to improve public discussion of city council issues of concern to area residents.

In what I hope is the first in a series of such discussions, I will start with the development options for city property on First Street between Main and State streets. The city requested proposals on how to develop this property in a way that provides more free public parking, a gateway to downtown, uses that benefit the public and economic advantages to the city. The received proposals being considered, fall into three categories:

1. One proposal is a low intensity use with single-story shops and lots of parking. The underground parking costs, at $25,000 or more per space, would probably be paid for by downtown property owners or not be built.

2. Three developers propose hotels with a restaurant or cafe and some shops. The public parking offered is about equal to what is currently available on site. All hotels proposed are three stories. At least $500,000 in annual hotel tax would be provided to the city.

3. Another concept has a row of shops along First Street with a cafe on the corner plus a small six-screen movie theater internal to the structure. The theater would carry shows such as “Billy Elliot” and “Best in Show,” using current movies as examples. Condominiums would be on the second and third floors. I hope the city considers buying some units to rent to emergency service employees as incentives to live in town where they can help in the event of a major disaster. Not counting condominium parking, 74 more free public parking spaces would be provided than are now available on the site. First Street, between State and Main, would have wide sidewalks, Pistache trees and shops on both sides.

There are many complex questions to be answered, including the existing leases and the possible need for rezoning or variances. There is an economic trade-off to be made: development intensity in exchange for public benefits. To get free public parking, a theater, and perhaps some housing for employees, the intensity goes up. If a three-story design can be done well enough to be acceptable with setback second and third floors, and if the public benefit is high, then we will have succeeded. Or we can have low intensity and pay directly for benefits such as parking and a theater.

We also have to decide how to judge the economic value to the public. How should we prioritize tax and lease revenue for the city government versus the relative economic benefit to downtown business owners? What is the economic viability of a hotel or theater? Will our small town setting ensure success for all proposed uses, even in a bad economy? How do we obtain and weight the opinions of our area residents and downtown business owners? Do the opinions of our youth count?

Finally, we have to be concerned about traffic. The hotel will add to our peak daytime traffic. The theater will add to our evening traffic, mostly on Friday nights and weekends which have light traffic now. A theater would add nothing to our much heavier daytime traffic. The city will be doing a traffic analysis and projection.

We will review and select decision criteria in a council work session on 7 p.m., Monday, at Hillview Community Center, room 11. I encourage you to attend our public meetings and help us make these decisions.

You are also welcome to use my Web site at los-altos.org for public comments.

King Lear began his one-year term as Los Altos mayor on Nov. 20.