By Elizabeth Cloutman

For the past 10 years, San Antonio Hills homeowners living west of Interstate 280 have sought annexation to Los Altos Hills, without success.

Now homeowners - from a major portion of the area and a smaller subdivision - have once again requested prezoning, the first legal step to annexation. Both groups say the requests are necessary in order to construct a sewer extension.

The Los Altos Hills City Council is scheduled to hold a public hearing Thursday on the prezoning request by Enrique Klein and the Mora Drive Sewer Project.

The area to be prezoned includes properties on Ravensbury Avenue, West Loyola Drive, Mora Drive, a portion of Magdalena Avenue and several smaller streets and cul-de-sacs within the area.

The area does not include properties south of Magdalena and west of 280.

Three months ago, the Santa Clara Local Agency Formation Commission, following a state law that allows out-of-agency services to be provided only in anticipation of annexation in the future, directed the Mora Drive Sewer Project to file the prezoning application.

The Los Altos Hills Planning Commission recommended that the city council approve the request.

More recently - in a move the summer newsletter of the San Antonio Hills Inc., Homeowners Association calls a “surprise” - a 51-parcel subdivision along Ravensbury Avenue has also requested annexation on its own. One Ravensbury subdivision homeowner called the move “a health issue.”

“There’s not an option for the owners. It’s an issue of necessity, a health issue,” said Suzanne Epstein, explaining the subdivision’s move. Epstein and her husband own a home on the portion of Ravensbury that is contiguous with the Los Altos Hills city boundary. Epstein said the area’s water table is too high for residents to be able to construct much-needed new and replacement septic systems that will meet current Santa Clara County sanitary requirements. Therefore, homeowners must connect to a sewer system. “We’re between a rock and a hard place,” she said.

According to both Los Altos Hills City Manager Maureen Cassingham and Planning Director Carl Cahill, the Ravensbury Avenue group’s request for prezoning has not yet been placed on the town’s planning commission agenda.

Cassingham said she expects the commission would not consider the Ravensbury request before late August at the earliest. If the city council approves the Mora Drive Sewer Project prezoning, the Ravensbury request would be moot.

On behalf of the 60-year-old San Antonio Hills Inc., Neighborhood Association membership, Richard Blanchard, president of the organization, wrote a July 12 letter to the Los Altos Hills City Council, requesting that the council “formally notify the association of all activities and proceedings involving San Antonio Hills.”

According to the summer newsletter, several surveys of association members have determined the majority prefers to “remain as a unit and to annex to the city of Los Altos Hills.” zoning is consistent with our present (one-acre) zoning … and in line with the desires of our members … It is the hope we will be able to discuss with (the Los Altos Hills council members) the annexation of the entire unit.”