By Linda Taaffe

Los Altos

Developer Roxy Rapp was scheduled to ask the Los Altos City Council earlier this week to allow for the addition of a third story for his downtown hotel project.

The council selected Rapp last June over three other developers to build a two-story boutique hotel with 75 public parking spaces on the .78-acre, city-owned site on the corner of First and Main streets, saying a three-story structure would be too massive for the site.

Rapp told the council last month that a two-story hotel would seriously compromise the economic viability of the project by limiting the number of rooms to about 50. He asked members to consider a revised hotel plan that would keep the approved 30-foot building height intact but allow for the addition of a third story.

The Town Crier went to press before the council’s Tuesday-night decision.

“In order to provide the quality, the amenities, the parking and the value of the land to the city, we need approximately 85 to 90 rooms. Therefore it is essential to have portions of the building be three stories, but within the 30-foot height limit,” Rapp told the council in a letter earlier this month.

The city’s Commercial Service zoning laws limit buildings to two stories and 30 feet in height. Zoning laws also limit the floor area ratio to 50 percent of the site’s area, or about 17,000 square feet on this particular site.

The council could use an existing city ordinance to expand the project to three stories if members consider it a general public benefit.

If the council approved the revised hotel plans, Rapp was scheduled to sign an “exclusive right to negotiate” agreement and give the city the $25,000 requested as part of the deal in order to get the project moving.

The council was scheduled to decide whether to hire consulting firm Keyser Martson Associates and law firm McDonough, Holland & Allen to negotiate the lease or the purchase of the property.