Council briefs Council briefs (October 15, 2004)

Permanent historic preservation law established

A half-dozen audience members filed out of Tuesday's city council meeting looking very relieved. The reason: the battle over whether to make the city's historic preservation law mandatory or voluntary was officially over. Property owners can now remove themselves from the register of historic resources until April 12, 2005.

In one of the most quiet official meetings on the matter in recent memory, the council voted 5-2 (with Council members Rosemary Stasek and Mary Lou Zoglin dissenting) to formally adopt the voluntary ordinance on its second reading.

The vote, which garnered no additional discussion on Tuesday, amounted to a mere formality to cap off two-and-a-half years of heated debate that began with an emergency interim ordinance in April 2002.

All ordinances must be read and approved at two council meetings before they become law.

Council asks developer to add more units

The Mid-Peninsula Housing Coalition (MPHC) had hoped to add 93 additional low-income units, mostly one-bedroom apartments, for seniors and developmentally disabled residents at the Central Park Apartments at 1929 Hackett Ave. But the council told the developer to try to add even more units.

The city would need to amend the zoning at the site, located at Central Expressway and Sierra Vista Avenue, from medium-high-density residential to high-density residential. The development already holds 149 units.

A study session about the project on Tuesday drew a sizeable crowd of housing advocates.

City alters townhouse standards

The council voted to change citywide townhouse standards to accommodate a project by local architect Bill Maston, despite concerns that the changes were unnecessary.

Maston asked the council to increase the amount of land townhouses are allowed to occupy. He said he wanted it to build more covered two-car garages in a 20-unit townhouse project at 203-233 Granada Dr.

Former Council member Nancy Noe, a neighbor of the project, said that the housing market leads to two-car garages in such projects anyway, and argued that the increase in land for the building was essentially a license to build bigger units.

Council member Greg Perry and Vice Mayor Matt Neely both supported the increase despite their reservations that it would lead to slightly bigger luxury homes rather than their goal of more numerous and affordable units.

The council will revisit this and other residential density issues in study sessions the first few months of 2005, according to community development director Elaine Costello.

Neely ties the knot

Vice Mayor Matt Neely got married to Erica Jamin last Sunday at his family's residence in Nicasio. Neely, an assistant principal at Mountain View High School, met Jamin, who works at UC San Francisco, in 2002 at the United Democratic Office in Mountain View.

Neely, a first-term council member, is in line to be mayor next year.

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