By Anne Gelhaus
After questioning him on everything from seating capacity to staffing, the Los Gatos Planning Commission last week denied Tom Albanese's application to construct bocce ball courts at the former Puccinelli Dehydrator Factory on University Avenue. Commissioners cited concerns about allowing a recreational facility in an industrial zone.
Albanese first brought his plans before the Development Review Committee in October. The DRC and the Historic Preservation Committee imposed 54 conditions on the project. Ken Rodriguez, Albanese's architect, incorporated all but two of these conditions into his design for the bocce ball club.
Only one of these omissions caused any concern at a Jan. 10 meeting, where Planning Commissioner Leonard Pacheco said Rodriguez's plan to replace the building's corrugated metal siding with wood paneling would compromise its historical value. Rodriguez told the commission that it wouldn't be economically feasible to maintain the metal siding because it would mean bringing out the windows to accommodate plywood backing that must be inserted to bring the building up to earthquake code. Rodriguez said flat wood siding would allow the windows to remain in the same place.
None of the commissioners expressed any reservations when Rodriguez insisted that the olive trees proposed for planting in the club's barbecue area not be replaced by town-approved trees. The olive trees, Rodriguez explained, would be 80 percent fruitless and out of the public right-of-way, thereby avoiding potentially messy sidewalks.
While planning commissioners questioned Albanese on many other aspects of his plan, including whether the seating he proposed would accommodate a tournament crowd and whether a staff of three could actually run the club, their 5-2 decision to deny his application was based solely on concern about amending the zoning ordinance. Even Pacheco and Commissioner Kathryn Morgan, who voted against the motion to deny, said they shared Commissioner Mike Abkin's concerns that allowing a bocce ball club in an industrial zone isn't consistent with the town's general plan.
Morgan said she couldn't find any legal basis to approve Albanese's club.
"It would change the land values [in its zone] and drive out existing businesses," she added, "but it would preserve a building there's been very little movement to preserve, with either metal or wood siding."
Before the vote, Planning Director Lee Bowman assured the commission that approving a zoning amendment for Albanese would not mean a blanket approval to make such changes anywhere else in the industrial zone.
"The Planning Commission can always determine whether a proposed use is good for that site," Bowman said.
Albanese said after the meeting that he would appeal the commission's decision within the 10 days allotted by the town.
"I got blindsided," he said of the vote. "They should have said in the beginning that [the zoning change] would be a problem."
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, January 17, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved