Recently, the Town Council of Los Gatos approved the building of an approximately 80-room hotel to be sited on E. Main Street across from the high school. These plans represent a very troubling step for the future of the town.
If they are carried out, they will be irrevocable. People have noted that over the recent years it is not just the isolated spot of development, but that there has been an acceleration in growth. This growth has occurred in an incremental fashion toward compact, crowded business development in the town.
This growth has not, for the most part, represented the interests of the citizens who live in the town. Developers come in with their plans and have no basic intention of living with the consequences as community residents must.
Large franchise businesses install themselves in the community and have no sense of immediate concern for the community they have invaded. The out-of-town owners and their concerns are the bottom line.
Why is the hotel across from the high school particularly troubling? The high school has long been recognized as a landmark in Los Gatos. Its historical value as a building, as a site, as an open place with large-growth trees is invaluable to the community. Before the current ambitious plans of the hotel, the neighborhood building from the high school and to the east has been relatively modest. By all standards the high school has established the environment of the neighborhood.
Public events have long been part of the history of the school. Graduations of many generations have occurred on the front lawn. School and community festivals occur there. High-school students enjoy lunch there on nice days or sprawl on the lawns after school. High-school students enjoy hanging out around their school. At what point will this natural tendency for hanging out become designated as loitering by hotel owners?
Also schools try to monitor the presence of unknown adults. How is that to be accomplished with a hotel across the street? How do you control who rents the rooms?
The hotel is in direct conflict with this atmosphere. It will sponsor events which cannot help but conflict with the school. It will increase traffic, including large and noisy service trucks, and inject more than a feeling of invasion of those front lawns, by primarily out-of-towners. The hotel will be the setting for parties that will include consumption of alcohol. This will not be limited in a small way to the evening hours as, in practicality, most of our restaurants do, but include afternoon events involving alcohol.
All citizens must know that the major drug of choice among Los Gatos students is alcohol. How discouraging to efforts to reduce this problem with our teens when it will be so flagrantly in use across the street. I can think of no other community that has installed a hotel next to its high school.
Furthermore, as I understand it, the hotel will be more than one story. What a shame it is that we are slowly losing the splendid view of our mountains to buildings. Again many communities, including Seattle, have put height limitation on building, but often too late.
One of the councilmembers referred to the hotel on Main St. as a completion to that end of town. When asked what that might mean, another councilmember clarified that conceptually, if you saw Los Gatos as a mall, then the hotel anchors that end of town while the building on N. Santa Cruz and Blossom Hill Road would anchor the other end of the mall. Do residents of Los Gatos like the mall concept for their town?
How should the town represent the community? The interests of the residents are paramount. After all, we vote. Then I see the small, local businesses as being intricately involved in the town. Large franchises should and must be considered differently in the best interests of the town.
Many residents prefer the small-town atmosphere that is, alas, vanishing and being superseded by the needs of the expanding businesses and their concomitant problems, including parking, increased traffic, tourism and with these, a growing need for a larger police force.
A major part of the budget now reflects the need to increase parking, to increase the police, and then again to increase more opportunities for more businesses. Where does it end?
Current trends have chains focusing on small, charming towns such as Los Gatos. So now Banana Republic, Starbucks and Blockbuster with their characteristic, predictable merchandise and all-purpose architecture are blotting out the individuality of the towns. All you have to do is visit Walnut Creek. The whole town has become a spread-out Valley Fair with exactly the same stores as that shopping center and all shopping centers.
The basic needs of the town and its residents are the social programs: libraries (Los Gatos Library is still operating on a skeletal budget), traffic control, social programs for elderly, children, teens and handicapped, and a vision for the future that includes open space and respect for the culture and history of the community. The budget should in a balanced fashion reflect these concerns.
We need to protect the small, local, owner-run businesses. This is what offers uniqueness to a community. These business people primarily live here and send their children to our schools. They want to get along with their neighbors and live alongside them.
I am hoping there is a way to get the vote on the hotel reconsidered. After all, a petition with 300 signatures was submitted in opposition to the hotel. If this is not possible, then serious limitations on the hotel should be imposed so that it does not override the high school neighborhood. While all change is inevitable, change that can be controlled should work in the best interests of people who live in the community.
Currently the accelerated rate of growth is much more than this town can absorb. A clear stand needs to be made regarding the rampant growth in Los Gatos.
Susan H. Anawalt is a resident of Monte Sereno.
Los Gatos, California Since 1881
