Photograph by Robert Scheer
Mark Mander and Ruthanne Baker have lived in this house on Villa Avenue for 14 years. They want their landlord--the town of Los Gatos--to relocate them to a comparable home in Los Gatos.
By Clarence Cromwell
It started six years ago with a grand plan:
The town of Los Gatos would buy four properties along Villa Avenue. It would help three renters there find new houses to rent or buy and would even help pay for the new homes. Then the town could build a sparkling new library near Town Hall, with help from the state.
But things worked out differently.
The town didn't get money to build the library. Tenants say the town refused to repair one decrepit house, and tenants weathered a 20 percent rent increase. One man is still bickering with the town over relocation benefits.
Now, the town is fixing the unoccupied Villa Avenue houses so it attract renters, postponing any plans to build a library for a long time.
Mark Mander, the last original renter on Villa Avenue complains that the town isn't keeping its promise to find him a house in Los Gatos comparable to the one he rents now.
The town gave Mander until Sept. 30 to move out, after he sent a May 19 letter saying he's considering a move and asking to know how much his relocation benefits would be.
Mander protested that the town can't legally ask him to leave without finding a replacement house for him. So the town's relocation consultant went to work on the house hunt and when he or Mander finds a place, the 90-day countdown will officially begin.
"I think the whole thing is to get us to move on our own and not assist us," Mander said. "And I'm working full time maybe six days a week, so should I have to go out and find [a house] myself?"
Mander insists the town should keep its promise to find another home like his two-bedroom, one-bath residence, which has more than 1,200 square feet of storage space in the attic, garage and basement. And the house should also be near downtown and have a place for a darkroom like the current house, Mander said.
A 1990 Town Council resolution promised that the town would find another such house, but the council reversed the decision two years later--after library plans fell through--saying it would be impossible to find a downtown house comparable to Mander's.
To make up for the lost space, the town will provide a house with two of the following: a garage, an extra bedroom, a portable storage shed.
But Community Services Director Regina Falkner said the relocation consultant is having a hard time finding such a place.
When he does, the town will have to make up the difference between the $989 a month rent Mander pays and his new rent or mortgage payment for four years, under the relocation plan for Villa Avenue. State law requires the town compensate tenants who have to move because of a public works project.
In 1993, the town's consultant estimated that it could cost as much as $30,000 to move C.R. and Rose Ann Berryman from their three-bedroom house at 108 Villa Ave. The Berrymans moved out last April, but they haven't collected benefits yet because they're traveling the country to visit relatives; they have a year to rent or buy another house.
In 1990, the town paid Sherry Hess more than $17,000 to help her move away from 54 Villa Ave. and buy a mobile home at a park in Los Gatos.
The Berrymans vacated their house at 108 Villa Ave. because the town neglected to make repairs they repeatedly requested for two years, Rose Ann Berryman said.
The Berrymans' Dec. 1, 1995, letter to the town states that they wanted to move because the repairs weren't done. The letter to Town Manager David Knapp said that one bedroom had severe water damage, the bathroom floor was so rotten it had a large hole through it, only two burners worked on the stove and the refrigerator would freeze anything put inside it. The house also needed electrical repairs, Berryman said. Some of the lights didn't work and occasionally she and her husband would smell overheated circuits.
The town had known about the state of the house at least two years before the Berrymans moved, but none of the repairs were completed until after they were gone, Rose Ann Berryman said.
Director of Building and Engineering Services Scott Baker said the town had a contractor lined up to make the repairs, but the Berrymans didn't want to be bothered by having it done.
The town hiked tenants' rent 20 percent in February 1994.
The increase was figured at 5 percent per year, starting in 1990. Town Attorney Larry Anderson said at the time the town's rent-control ordinance allowed the retroactive rent hike.
Falkner said the hike still left the rents below usual market rates for Los Gatos.
Now that the properties are vacant, the town plans to spend $78,480 over six years to fix up the Villa Avenue houses and charge higher rents.
The house at 108 Villa Ave. that the Berrymans rented for $750 a month brings the town $1,950 a month. But now it has fresh paint inside and out, a remodeled bathroom (including a tile floor), refinished wood floors throughout the house, new doors, new kitchen appliances and cabinets, a new furnace, a new paved driveway and some electrical work.
The houses are the best use for the property, because the town doesn't have $6 million to put up a library, Baker said.
In 1992, the town tried and failed to win a $5.8 million state grant for the library building.
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, August 21, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved