After an intense study session on the Cuesta Annex last Tuesday, council members gave no hint as to how they will vote Nov. 14 when the issue returns to council.
During the two hour session, the debate between ball fields, open space and some kind of compromise raged on in the public comment period. When asked to raise their hands, open space advocates made up about 75 percent of the audience, while ball field advocates made roughly 25 percent.
Steve Coyle, a consultant hired by the city, presented the four main plans from the Annex, distilled from 11 designed in two community workshops. The plans ranged from no changes to the open space (“Plan A”) to just over half of it being used for ball fields (“Plan D”).
“Most people suggested some type of balance, I believe,” Coyle said, referring to the opinion of workshop participants who, he claimed, favored a compromise between open space and playing fields.
Open space advocates, however, disagreed with this assessment. Results from the workshops — in which the four plans were ranked using a point system — seemed to show that open space received far more support.
Plan A, which would require little change to the Annex, got 13.4 points. Plan B, which would add a community garden, an orchard and possibly the local Historical Association’s proposed museum — and no ball fields — got the highest score with 13.8 points. Plan C, which would add a turf area along Cuesta Drive, got 6.8 points. Plan D, which would put a baseball field and a soccer field on just over half the property, removing the orchards, garden and museum, got the lowest score with 6.3 points.
On Tuesday, Ed Mussman, a parks and recreation commissioner and longtime baseball coach, said that most coaches were on vacation when notices for the workshops went out. At a recent Parks and Rec Commission meeting, commissioners voted 3-2 in favor of ranking the ball field options above the others.
Council member Greg Perry asked questions regarding flood control. How many acre-feet, he asked, of retention basin would it take to provide adequate flood control at the Annex? Representatives from the Santa Clara Valley Water Control Board said 130 to 190 acre-feet. Perry noted that if only a fifth of the lot was devoted to flood control, it would mean a very deep hole.
Mayor Nick Galiotto made it clear that the direction of the council was to decide on the Annex’s recreational uses first, then decide on how flood control might be added later. The SCVWD is scheduled to meet with the council in December, after a decision is made on the Annex.
At the end of the workshop, the council asked staff to provide them with information on the neighborhood location of the residents who filled out questionnaires about the Annex during the workshops. Staff also agreed to find out how many adults participate in sports, how many children, how many are residents of Mountain View and what the inventory is on local ball fields.
No protection for Wunderman house
A different annex was approved Tuesday, when the council voted to annex the Wunderman house — the city’s former brothel on Eunice Avenue — and its property.Due to its past, the historic house is not up to code by the city’s standards. But the council did not second Perry’s proposal to change city code to allow the deputy zoning administrator to decide whether a building is historic enough to preclude it from modern code violations.
The house had already been cited for county code violations, and city codes would be no more severe, staff said. Any further code violations would be grandfathered in, they said.
Zoning motion DOA
Council member Perry also failed to move the council with his proposal to change R3 zoning throughout the city, a change which would allow greater housing density — more units per square footage — in future developments.His proposal was spurred by a decision at last week’s city council meeting to replace 15 affordable apartments on Rock Street with 15 large, expensive row homes. But his colleagues demurred.
“I’m not eager to pursue this idea,” said council member Laura Macias. “When I look at what is in the pipeline, I don’t see a lot of large homes being built.”
Council member Tom Means said he was skeptical the proposal would pan out, because Perry’s last meeting of his term was only weeks away. Perry said he wanted to get the proposal moving so it could be studied and brought to the planning commission.
Council member Matt Pear said he would bring the issue up again in the future if it failed. Pear seconded Perry’s motion, bit no one else voted for it. It failed 4-2.
No re-vote after confusion
Also Tuesday, Macias expressed frustration that the staff and some council members had misunderstood her motion of the previous week to defer a gatekeeper request for a development project at 333 North Rengstorff Ave.“I don’t like being told that when I say ‘defer processing,’ that means approval,” Macias said.
A gatekeeper request is a first step, allowing a proposal to be considered and studied by city staff; it does not necessarily mean it will be ultimately approved.
There was obvious disagreement about what exactly was meant by Macias’ motion to “defer processing” of the gatekeeper request. Council member Mike Kasperzak said he would not support a re-vote, because the assumption was that the gatekeeper request was being approved. Work on the project would now be deferred, as the staff had recommended.
“The wording could have been clearer,” said city manger Kevin Duggan.
When Macias moved to take a re-vote on the proposal, the motion failed with no one to second it.
“We know when we are approving something,” Macias said. “The motion was to defer processing. There was no project approval.”
It was still unclear exactly how the vote would have gone if the council had agreed on the meaning of the motion.
When asked what direction the staff would take on the gatekeeper request without a re-vote, Duggan said it would become clear what the new council next year felt about the project, and another gatekeeper request would be unnecessary.
E-mail Daniel DeBolt at ddbolt@mv-voice.com
