By Susan Kerr
 Illustration by Monique Schoenfeld, Town Crier |
Los Altos’ Census data shows little growth; local changes will be ‘evolutionary’
Where do you want to be in the year 2010? If the answer is Los Altos, then picture this. Perhaps you’ll live downtown, above your favorite hair salon and within walking distance of a movie theater and the local hotel. Or maybe you’ll live in your remodeled two-story house on a street lined with sidewalks and bike lanes, where traffic is diverted by a roundabout. Or how about high-density housing off El Camino, near a newly spruced-up shopping center?
Right now, the future of Los Altos is on the drawing board. The city government is beginning to prepare a new general plan, a legal document that serves as a road map for how a city chooses to look and feel. Los Altos is currently working off a general plan completed in 1987. The time is ripe, city council members believe, for creating a new framework.
But rest assured, four out of five council members said that while change is going to happen, don’t look for Los Altos to become unrecognizable. As 2000 Census results indicated, overall growth the past 10 years was small, and that won’t change over the next 10 years. “Los Altos is built out, so it’s unlikely that anything dramatic will happen unless there’s some sort of natural disaster,” said Councilmember John Moss. “The change will be evolutionary, not revolutionary, which is good. People like Los Altos as it is.”
Expected to be complete in the 2003 time frame, the new general plan will be updated with a lot of community input through focus groups and public meetings. Whether Los Altos will push for a government-sponsored resident survey, similar to what Los Altos Hills just completed, is up in the air. However, the Los Altos Neighborhood Network plans to poll at least the 600 households in its group to gather data to give to the city council, according to Leslie Lodestro, president of the homeowners group.
The city is working first on a new housing plan (including plans for state-mandated affordable housing) that should take six to eight months, according to Councilwoman Kris Casto. Work on the circulation - or traffic - portion of the plan will be kicked off soon. Later on, other elements, including environmental and economic planning, will begin.
Recognizing that the city leaders’ thoughts are focused on the future, the Town Crier asked a number of leaders what changes they thought would occur between now and 2010. We chose the year 2010 since it’s not so far in the future as to be unrealistic, and because it’s also the year of the next Census (See box on the 2000 Census results.).
Downtown
Perhaps few topics have been more prone to disagreement lately than that of downtown Los Altos. The problem is simple: How does the town maintain a balance between charm and profitability?
“People very much want it to continue as their little downtown,” said Council Member Lou Becker, “with semi-rural character.” In other words, don’t expect Home Depot to move in.
Yet there is also the desire to make downtown a little more peppy. “Right now it’s dead at night,” acknowledged Los Altos Mayor King Lear.
“Geographically (downtown) won’t spill out, but the density will expand,” added Becker. For example, the Packard Foundation will complete its large office building on Second Street long before 2010. Additionally, by 2010 there definitely will be something new at the city-owned lot on the corner of Main and First streets, but just what it’ll be is the subject of heated debate.
The two most bandied-about ideas are a movie theater or a hotel, each with its own proponents. Considering that the current tenants of the city-owned buildings have expressed no interest in leaving before their leases expire in 2006, it may be late in this decade before anything is completed. Whatever is chosen, however, is sure to increase traffic - not just downtown, but also along Foothill Expressway. Either way, any new structure will include underground parking.
Parking poses a quandary, as any new building downtown must come with additional parking, according to Becker. The city owns numerous parking lots sprinkled around downtown. All four council members agreed that there is the real possibility of converting some of the lots to underground parking by 2010. However, cost is an issue, cautioned Moss.
One way to counter costs is to expand the function of the lots from parking only. Lear discussed the idea of placing underground parking on some lots, with new retail and residential space aboveground. Moss thinks a more suitable spot for a movie theater could be the lot near the McWhorter’s stationery store.
In general, by 2010 the mix of residential versus commercial usage downtown may be different from today’s. “There is the potential of looking at housing opportunities downtown,” Casto said.
Lear agreed, noting that one potential development could be to allow second-story residential units on downtown buildings. However, this idea is not one shared by Moss. Adding second stories to one-floor buildings would change the downtown appearance, he warned.
“They could add vibrancy and liveliness downtown, but you don’t want to go overboard,” Casto said.
Additionally, Lear said, one possible solution to helping the city attract and retain young employees could be to have some sort of subsidized rent for town workers living downtown.
For all the jokes about Los Altos being ground zero for hair and nail salons, these are the types of business that locals like and use, and that won’t change, Moss said. “We’re not trying to create a regional mall that serves people 20 miles away. So dry cleaners, shoe stores, salons, those all are important and are what makes our downtown different,” he said.
Residential zoning
While the economy may cause a short-term slackening in house sales or remodels, no one believed that by 2010 Los Altans will return to the single-story, ranch-style houses favored in the 1960s. “Laterally, people will build out,” Becker said. He said this might not necessarily mean that houses are all two stories, but new projects will take up as much of the length and width of the lot as possible.
As for the anti-second-story movement, that should all be done with by 2010. The so-called overlay rule, in which neighborhoods can vote to keep their area houses single-story, should be approved by maybe three or four neighborhoods and be a dead issue elsewhere, council members believe. Zoning laws should stay pretty much as is. “I don’t think the city will make it easier for people to subdivide,” said James Walgren, Los Altos community development director.
Likewise, Casto said that she “draws the line” at changing the current R1-10 residential codes in the new general plan.
Yet given the state mandate directing Los Altos to add more affordable housing units, the most likely solution will be to press for higher-density housing around commercial areas.
Sherwood and El Camino
The El Camino Real corridor is likely to look different by 2010. By the end of 2002, two new Marriott hotels will be completed in north Los Altos.
A big eyesore today, but with the most potential for tomorrow, is the Sherwood Triangle area, best known for housing popular restaurants such as Chef Chu’s. However, the neighborhood also includes many rundown houses. Because Sherwood Triangle is one of the main gateways into Los Altos, there is a push for sprucing up the area.
“In the old general plan, El Camino is looked at as a producer of revenue. It does make sense to make it as attractive and friendly as possible,” Casto said.
She and Lear agreed that the area could be ideal for combined housing and retail usage. The problem, though, is that there are approximately 25 different owners in the area, not all of whom share in the desire to improve their lots.
Traffic
There is no doubt that the traffic problem will only worsen. Everyone agreed that mass transit must improve, but that won’t prevent the area from “choking on traffic,” according to Lear.
“The bulk of Los Altos is between Foothill Expressway and El Camino,” Moss said, “and as use increases on El Camino, usage increases on our north-south streets like El Monte and San Antonio.”
While there seems to be little hope of decreasing traffic, the town will look at ways to increase safety. Already under discussion is the use of rotaries or roundabouts to slow down traffic, such as the one going up now in the Grant Road area. Speed bumps are not a good idea, Moss said. However, other suggestions likely to get the thumbs up are narrowing down some streets and putting in more bike lanes.
“Sidewalks are a neighborhood-by-neighborhood issue,” Casto said, adding that residents need to weigh safety versus maintaining the supposed “rural” nature of the town. Generally, making sure that there are sidewalks near all schools is step one, she said.
Public facilities, projects
By 2010, projects that are now just talk should be finished, bringing for the first time to Los Altos such public facilities as gymnasiums and swimming pools. In a swap with the school district, the town will support gyms at Egan and Blach junior highs. Also, three pools should be completed at Rosita.
Open space is a rarity in Los Altos, and there is precious little the town can do to change that. Yet, Moss and Lear independently mentioned how the town would one day like to acquire the tract of orchards on Los Altos Avenue, particularly because there are no parks in the north end of town. Also on the drawing board is a proposal to replace City Hall with a new civic center. This may require a bond issue, Becker said.
Likewise, city officials hope that by 2010 all elementary and junior high school construction will be complete. These projects require that the town be financially healthy. All four council members said that while the town is currently in good fiscal shape, there is the fear that if the economy worsens, Sacramento will take a bigger bite out of local funding. Being more creative, such as by raising the local tax on hotels, is going to be a must. “Sure a city can still pass parcel taxes, but we’d have to be really hurting for people to pass a new tax,” Lear said.
Population
Los Altos is geographically built out, and as town leaders seem disinclined to drop the quarter-acre lot minimum, it seems unlikely that population will increase much by 2010. That is, unless Los Altos increases its geographic size.
One real possibility is that Los Altos may incorporate the San Antonio Hills area, home to roughly 3,000 people, Lear said. Those residents would need to vote on it, and the city would have to agree that it was in its financial and community interest.
By 2010, Los Altos may experience déjà vu all over again. Folks who moved in 30 years ago, when their kids were in school, are moving away, driven out in part by the high cost of living. Their replacements, again those with school-aged kids, may start seeing some empty nests by then. Yet the Los Altos they face will not be the same.
“When they moved here years ago, half the town was orchards. This is now a metropolitan region,” Casto said.
Nonetheless, that change can be monitored. “We should keep improving quality, or else,” Lear said, “we’ll kill the goose that laid the golden egg.”
