Los Gatos Weekly-Times

COUNCIL AMENDS TOWN CODE

By Clarence Cromwell

With little discussion, the Town Council accepted a package of amendments to the Town Code May 6 aimed at easing downtown parking and allowing business offices along Los Gatos-Saratoga Road in an area previously restricted to retail.

One amendment bans reserved parking spaces on private property.

Signs limiting parking for customers of a certain business tend to limit spaces available to other tenants of a shopping center, according to a memo from Planning Director Lee Bowman to the council.

The new Town Code section forbids businesses from reserving parking for their customers, unless a parking lot contains more spaces than adjacent businesses need. Although parking is tightest downtown, Bowman said, the code applies to all property in Los Gatos. An additional amendment changed legal dimensions of parking spaces and deleted obsolete references to compact parking spaces.

A third, unrelated zoning amendment added professional office space to the land uses permitted on the ground-floor level along Los Gatos-Saratoga Road.

The Rugani Trust, owners of 211-223 Los Gatos-Saratoga Road, asked for the amendment. The firm hopes to lease space in the long-vacant building to Contempo Realty, which wouldn't be permitted under the current zoning.

The council in 1990 passed a temporary prohibition on new ground-level office space downtown. Councilmembers wanted to keep the numerous buildings then under renovation for quake damage open for retail businesses, rather than professional offices. Office space would have changed the downtown's atmosphere and would generate less sales-tax revenue for the city, they maintained.

Mike Rugani explained to the Planning Commission at its April 10 meeting that the property should be rezoned for office use because few retailers are interested in the area. The stretch of Los Gatos-Saratoga between Massol Avenue and N. Santa Cruz Avenue sees little foot traffic, Rugani said. Retailers would suffer because the buildings aren't visible enough, and a center median stops drivers from turning left across Los Gatos-Saratoga Road, he said. Anyone heading west would have to turn left on Massol and either U-turn back to Los Gatos-Saratoga or take a circuitous route through the Almond Grove neighborhood to get to the trust's buildings.