Allastair, Is the listbot working?  This has not been posted for a while

Mark


Dear Friends, Speak up now or forever hold your peace!

Eighty  percent of everything  ever built in America has been built since WWII and a lot of that is just plain junk.  Strip malls, cheap sub divisions, big box outlets, fast food franchises, and gas station convenience stores.   This week, the people
of vision in Los Gatos can chose to build something better.

The March 8 meeting of  the planning commission will review an application for a proposed gas station- convenience store- car wash in the North 60.  It will be made to look nice, but compared to what the community has asked for; it is still junk!  Even if it is the Taj Mahal of gas stations, it still is an insult to everyone who participated in the Boulevard Plan, the Charette, or the North 40 planning review.

The community has asked the town to re zone the North 60 to provide services to Los Gatos.  These include, a transit center, some affordable housing, magnet school or hotel, live theater, soccer, or sports center, some open orchard space over underground parking, and now a children's hospital.

Instead of an integrated plan for these community requests, the town is presenting its citizens with another gas station.


Property owners do have rights to make a profit,  but a carefully  planned development of this area will yield even higher returns and benefit far more people.  All that is needed is the comprehensive plan for these precious and irreplaceable 60 acres.  Then property owners, both large and small, will have a map showing how their parcels fit into an over all development.

The existing General plan and Boulevard plans have been proven to be flawed and the latest North 40 plan seemed only an exercise to justify pushing through piecemeal projects like this gas station.  That is why the town must follow its own policies and make land use decisions match their own stated town vision.

This vision can be seen in the Town's new Strategic Plan  (found at http://www.los-gatos.ca.us/los_gatos/residents/stratpl.html) 

It calls for the following:

Draft new General Plan for community review

Develop consensus around the community's major land use issues

Promote construction of Vasona Corridor light rail, if funding materializes

Discourage cross or through Town commuter traffic

Add Los Gatos as a stop on Santa Cruz-San Jose express bus line
 
Encourage the provision of express buses in the Route 85 H.O.V. lane

Conduct a downtown/Los Gatos Blvd. shuttle feasibility study

Enhance pedestrian and bicycle circulation throughout Town

Further develop traffic calming programs

The North 60 must be part of an integrated approach to accomplish these wonderful goals.  If we start selling off parcels piecemeal now one must ask the following questions:

Where will the Highway 17 express bus stop:  in Downtown causing more congestion? 

How will Highway 17 commuters get to the Vasona Light rail park and ride: by clogging Lark  Avenue?

Where will more affordable housing be built if not mixed into commercial buildings like Main Street?  

Where can satellite parking be built and how will people use it? 

Will we condemn all our less fortunate to trailer parks? 

Will parents with sick kids stop for gas and a snack in Los Gatos on their way up to Stanford? 

How far must families commute to find an open soccer field,

And, why do all new building seem more at home in Southern California instead of looking like our chamber of  commerce brochure?
 
The only answer to these questions can be found in detail planning which meets the requirements of the Town's Strategic Plan.  We must not allow any development here until we have that plan.  If the people of Los Gatos do not speak out now we will all lose a chance for a better future.

Mark