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Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
Alex Noe, 9, and Blake Dailor eagerly await their turn at the podium.
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Students try their hand at North Forty
It seemed impossible that anything or anyone could bring "cuteness" to the painstakingly detailed and hotly contested North Forty Specific Plan review. But then again, most Planning Commission meetings don't include PowerPoint presentations by schoolchildren showing their vision of the North Forty.
Although the business at hand was to summarize concerns and criticisms regarding the Specific Plan, the presentation by local fourth- and fifth-graders at the start of the meeting gave the public and the commission a welcome break after two meetings of intense analysis and debate over the future of the North Forty.
The children, all of whom participate in the Gifted And Talented Education (GATE) program, outlined their plans for the area and gave an overview of what they had been learning in their weekly seminars. Volunteer consultants from RBF, an engineering, planning, and surveying firm, worked for six weeks with the students, familiarizing them with definitions of land use, different planning documents, determining scale, land-use compatibility, and analyzing what would make a community ideal.
The children came up with a variety of plans.
"We put a KFC-Taco Bell there," one student said, pointing to a hand drawn picture on the projection screen, "because there's only one in Los Gatos."
Each of the four plans presented by the children included many of the goals expounded by the public at previous hearings--lots of public space, playing fields, medium-density residential developments, and civic uses, including a skate park.
"There's nowhere in town where you can go skating and not get in trouble," one girl explained.
There were also a few suggestions the commission probably hadn't considered: one group designed a lake with islands for "tourists and fishermen"; another offered fountains to play in; and one student presented a drawing of her Fresh Choice Castle. "Los Gatos needs more imaginative places," she said.
Of course, the plans were not without flaws. Pointing to a drawing of residential units, students Sam Chadwick and Michael Diamond admitted, "The guy climbing in the trees was just sort of a misprint sort of thing."
The GATE program involves 175 of the 2,800 students in the Los Gatos Union School District. After-school seminars include language, computer science and even robotics classes.
RBF consultants, including Laura Forbes, mother of GATE student John Forbes, are celebrating their 50th anniversary by reaching out to the community to teach future generations about land use and planning.
Joanne Talesfore, GATE curriculum coordinator, said the North Forty Specific Plan was a natural choice for study, being the last large undeveloped piece of land in Los Gatos. "It's important to get kids thinking about what shapes the community they live in," Talesfore said. "Hopefully, this will get parents talking to kids over the dinner table about land uses."
Back to the Grindstone
Once the children had completed their presentations, the task of summarizing public and commission input on the Specific Plan began.
The town's goal is to have a document in place to guide future development of the area between Los Gatos Boulevard and highways 17 and 85. Seventy-five percent of the 44 acres is orchard land owned by the Yuki family, which to date has shown no interest in selling. The area also includes several residential streets and a few small businesses.
Commission members, however, quickly gave up the idea of trying to reach consensus on recommendations for each chapter. Nearly every aspect of the plan has drawn public criticism, and revisions suggested by the public and the commission are extensive and varied. Instead, the commission voted to forward all public and commission input to the Town Council, which will make recommendations to the consultant group for its final draft.
Although they did not reach consensus for formal recommendations, planners did forward general comments that support reducing the emphasis on the "economic security" aspect of the current draft, as well as the inclusion of a residential component and corresponding changes to the General Plan's zoning, and less obtrusive architecture.
Commissioner Sandy Decker repeatedly butted heads with her fellow commissioners over whether the group was doing the right thing by forwarding anything to the council at this point. The need for a revised environmental study, modified vision statement, a new land-use hierarchy and numerous other problems led Decker to cast dissenting "no" votes on forwarding to council input for each chapter.
"This is a major planning issue," Decker later said. "My feeling is that the issue should have stayed in planning for one more revision. I couldn't truly recommend [the plan] in any form, as flawed as it is."
Commission Chairwoman Laura Nachison stressed her belief that the council directive was for the commission to make some sort of recommendation, no matter how flawed the document was. If council wishes, she said, they could return the next draft to the Planning Commission.
Nachison also noted at the meeting how the whole North Forty public review process showcased the problems in not involving the public from the beginning. "We could have eliminated a lot of frustration on the part of commissioners and the public," she said.
The Specific Plan may end up colliding with the revision of the town's General Plan, which should be completed sometime next summer, a fact that has led many community members and several commissioners to question the need for speed in adopting a specific plan.
Decker said that, whatever happens, she would like to see the public continue to involve themselves in the process.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
