Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Commissioners approve final plans for Calvary expansion

SummerHill comes back next week

By Jeff Kearns

After five years of seeking approval for a set of plans that has been changed countless times, Calvary Church seems to have cleared the last hurdle in its quest to gain approval for a major update and expansion of its campus.

The church got final approval from the Planning Commission last week on the design of its 39,000-square-foot multi-purpose building, a new parking lot and other improvements.

With Paul Bruno opposed, the commission voted 6-1 to approve the church's architecture and site application. The Town Council in February sent parts of the plan back to the commission for another look after it approved the basic use of the building.

The building, called the Family Life Center, will replace an older, smaller building on the same site. The new building will contain two basketball courts, classrooms, offices, a kitchen and an exercise room.

Calvary also plans to pave a vacant lot at the end of Robie Lane for use as an overflow parking lot, which would bring the number of parking spaces up to 467. Town code requires the church to provide 420 spots.

A small but vocal group of neighbors opposed to the project brought up a miscellany of minor issues at the planning meeting, such as parking regulations and a seminary already approved to move from another building on the church campus, on Los Gatos Boulevard.

The Western Conservative Baptist Seminary, a satellite campus of the main seminary in Portland, Ore., will be moving into the new building.

Opponents asked that the parking requirement for the site be reduced to the original number of spaces to preserve a house that stands in the way of the new lot, although preserving the house would mean less room for parking. Commissioner Kathryn Morgan, who made the motion for approval, said the house was a secondary concern because "the need for parking at a very active church overrides the need to preserve the house."

The basic protest from neighbors hasn't changed: The project is too big, they say, and the Planning Commission isn't concerned about the neighborhood.

"We're concerned with the decision," says Gail Brady, who has tried to block the expansion by filing appeals. "The neighbors are the ones that will have to live with the noise, traffic and loss of hillside views."

Brady says she's done appealing to the church, but another neighbor may take up the baton and appeal the most recent approval.

After the meeting, the Rev. Fred Wilson, pastor at the church, said he was glad to be done with the whole process but downplayed the sometimes antagonistic relationship between the church and its neighbors over the last few years.

"The whole process was valuable for us as a church because it forced us to re-evaluate the project and refine some aspects of design and use," he said. He added that the church plans to keep working with neighbors when construction begins.

Now that the church has a final set of plans and a green light from the town, the only part left for church officials is raising the $5 million to pay for the project. Wilson said that he was optimistic about fundraising.

In other action, the commission voted to put off a decision on SummerHill Homes' application to build a development on Blossom Hill Road. Commissioners wanted to have more time for themselves and neighbors to look at a slightly revised set of plans that the developers submitted the day before the meeting.

Planners previously asked SummerHill to come back with plans that would knock off four homes from the total, make minor adjustments to the layout of the streets and save an old garage used as a laboratory by Ralph Heinz, who patented dozens of inventions he created in the building.

SummerHill came back with plans to remove two houses from the total but wouldn't save the barn, which development manager Elaine Breeze said is obsolete in terms of its former use and would be inconsistent with a residential area. Breeze said that the historic aspects of Heinz's shop would be better served by an interpretive display with pictures and a short history which is planned nearby.

The commission voted 6-1 to bring SummerHill back next time. Commissioner Marcia Jensen voted nay.

Jensen tried a motion to deny SummerHill's application because she said the Palo Alto-based developer had been uncooperative. "If the community, the environmental impact report and the zoning don't support [the proposal], we shouldn't recommend it," she said, but the motion failed.

SummerHill comes back to the commission May 27.

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