By Elizabeth Cloutman

A small group of homeowners in San Antonio Hills probably breathed a sigh of relief last week. After leaping the last legal hurdle in a nearly two-year bureaucratic battle - approval for prezoning by the Los Altos Hills City Council - 16 residents along Mora Drive can now legally construct a sewer extension at their own expense. The extension will replace the aging septic tanks in their nearly 70-year-old neighborhood.

Last Thursday evening, the Los Altos Hills City Council approved prezoning for a portion of an unincorporated area of Santa Clara County, located east/southeast of Los Altos Hills and southwest of the 280 Freeway. The prezoned area includes properties on Ravensbury Avenue, West Loyola Drive, Mora Drive, a portion of Magdalena Avenue and several smaller streets and cul-de-sacs. It does not include properties south of Magdalena and west of 280, at the northwestern corner of San Antonio Hills.

“We couldn’t replace the old septic tanks because of a high water table, poor percolation rates, and the county requirements for a leach field are too large for our lots,” said resident Enrique Klein, who is co-manager of the Mora Drive Sewer Project.

Prezoning is usually a first step of annexation to a municipality, but residents of most of the area involved - except for Ravensbury Drive - are not seeking immediate annexation to Los Altos Hills, said Mora Drive homeowner Chuck Bodine. Only areas that are contiguous to a city boundary can be annexed, he said.

On April 11, the Santa Clara Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) approved the Mora Drive Sewer Project because the county department of environmental health found some of the existing Mora Drive septic systems to be contamination risks, Klein said. As a condition of approval, LAFCO required residents to submit a prezoning request to Los Altos Hills because state law allows out-of-agency services to be provided only in anticipation of annexation.

Pipeline construction on Mora Drive is expected to take about two months, Bodine said. Homeowners will contract separately. Klein said the Mora Drive Sewer Project is expected to cost about $500,000, or $30,000 per participating resident.

“It’s a major financial commitment,” Bodine said.