6-17-15
Thoughts about the North 40 as we close in on a final Specific Plan:
(1) the property will not become a large park, and development is inevitable;
(2) seniors are not going to move to multi-story units without an elevator.
(3) Millennial’s are not going to move to a boring development.
(4) We should provide variable heights up to 50 feet at the lowest section to relieve the boredom of everything at 35′. The commercial square footage approved (435,000 plus existing buildings on the Boulevard @66,000 sq. ft.) must remain the same.
(5) Put more trust into the Yuki’s decision who hired Grosvenor to design and build this 40 acres. They have always been good to the town and there’s no reason to believe they are trying to any differently now.
I am sure the Yuki’s put alot of time into vetting a developer that would continue their legacy in the town. The Council could get into the weeds and homegenize it to look like every other piece of hokey development, or you can create a collaboratively designed environment whereby this town gets a gorgeous development that complements and enhances the downtown and sucks our local citizens back to shopping in Los Gatos exclusively.
The vision statement says that we want the North 40 to look and feel like Los Gatos. However, the current talk seems to center around NOT having the North 40 look like the downtown.
As good as you all are at your own jobs and as council people, I am concerned that if there is design at the dais, we may be homogenizing the north 40 to NOT look anything like downtown Los Gatos, but more like what we got at Swanson Ford. Granted, currently it looks better than the old Swanson building did, but what we got was more vanilla blandness. Using awnings as the main design feature is pathetic.
If you take all that I have said in the preceding; ie, good property owners; good developers; good work of setting top level parameters thus far by the council, I would hate to see the council getting deep into the weeds of designing a development for which none of you have been trained. I would encourage you to continue with the high level parameters, but forget setting % limits on businesses. Let the market work. The downtown will continue to thrive and we’ll all be better off having the competition between “downtown and uptown”.
Developers are professionals just as attorney’s, engineers and realtors are. Regardless of how smart each may be, I won’t hire them to design and build out 40 acres. Somewhere along the development line, you have to place trust in the Yuki’s decision to go with Grosvenor, and trust in Grosvenor to build a development they will be proud of as will we. We can do that with oversight and collaboration.
Whomever approved the design of the Swanson Ford development should not be used to work with this developer. Granted, the Swanson development is better than the old Ford dealership, but the development is an example of homogenized blandness for which we’ve all become accustomed. Don’t accept that. The North 40 could be so much more if the town, the owners and the developer work together
Jak Van Nada
Los Gatos Community Alliance
Council 3″ speech for 6-17-15
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