By Linda Taaffe

Los Altos Hills

Most Los Altos Hills residents would prefer a scaled-down and less costly town hall, according to a citywide survey conducted by the grass-roots group LAH Watchdog.

Nine out of 10 residents, or about 95 percent of those surveyed, said they favored the alternative wood-style town hall designed by residents over the stucco, mission-style structure that the Los Altos Hills City Council approved during the summer. About 75 percent of the town’s 2,597 residents had responded to the survey late last week.

LAH Watchdog is an approximately 800-member resident group that wants the city council to stop work on the proposed town hall until the city collects sufficient resident input on the project. Watchdog members say the city’s town hall design is too high, too extravagant and costs too much. The project could cost each household as much as $2,000, members say.

Watchdog members last July threatened litigation and a referendum to reverse the council’s decision to build a $5 million to $7 million, 7,000-square-foot town hall with a 35-foot bell tower on Fremont Road.

Council members said they planned to ask for resident donations to fund the new building.

Watchdog member Mark Breier last month submitted the alternative wood design, which is half the cost, size and height of the city’s current plan. Breier said the alternative town hall is the same square footage as the current plan but is only 18 feet 9 inches high and will cost $2.5 million to build. The project would cost each household about $600, according to Watchdog calculations.

Breier said the wood-style design is more in keeping with the rural setting of the town.

Only 15 residents, or 6 percent, voted in favor of the city-designed town hall, according to the survey results.

Breier said the group wants an “honest, dollar-conscious” council that gathers citizen input.

Council members said they have already made tremendous compromises on the building’s design.

“We took 2,000 square feet off the original design even before we got public input,” Councilman Steve Finn said during a motion to approve the building.

Mayor Bob Fenwick said the survey would not likely change the council’s action.

“I don’t believe that the council will pay any attention to it,” Fenwick said. “It’s my belief that the way the survey was formulated was fundamentally flawed … these kinds of surveys tend to be responded to by negative people.”