Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Toll House plans to ask Council if Peerless property can go on market

Expansion would depend on the town's willingness to sell

Bridge across road required

By Dale Bryant

When management from the Toll House appeared before the Conceptual Development Advisory Committee early last summer, committee members suggested they take their dramatic expansion plans directly to the Town Council. In doing so, they would obtain a sense of how receptive councilmembers might be and, more pragmatically, find out whether the town would be interested in selling the property the Toll House is eyeing.

The Toll House will address the council Oct. 7 at the regular meeting, which begins at 7:30 p.m. in Council Chambers.

What the Toll House would like to do is add 34 rooms on land across S. Santa Cruz Avenue. The property, a former Peerless bus depot, is owned by the town. And the only way such an addition would be feasible, says Toll House General Manager Dan Ponder, is if the hotel built a bridge across the road.

Responding to the CDAC's concerns about the bridge cutting off the view of the mountains, Ponder says: "We've done our homework; we've revised the bridge plans and made them more light and airy."

According to Planning Director Lee Bowman, the council might respond by saying "no way," or that it could be feasible, and that would give the hotel management a sense of whether to pursue the plans. But even before they get to that stage, the town must decide if it wants to sell the property."If they decide they want to sell, they'll have to go through a number of steps, including getting an appraisal," Bowman says. Once the appraisal has been done, the town can name a price.

But because the parcel is public property, says Bowman, state law requires that the town must first offer it for open space. And if there are no takers, it must then offer it for low-income housing.

"The town is under no obligation to set a below market-rate price, but if someone wants to pay to turn the space into open space, or someone wants to pay to develop low-income housing, the town would have to sell it to those parties."

Town Manager David Knapp points out that hotel rooms are beneficial to economic development because for every $100 spent on a hotel room, $10 goes directly into town coffers via the transient occupancy tax.