Los Gatos has 8 huge housing projects as a result of our leadership failing to get the Housing Element certified. The General Planning process started over 5 years ago in 2018. One very critical item in the General Plan is the Housing Element (HE). It is critical because the State gave the Town a very adequate amount of time to get the HE certified by meeting their requirements by 1/31/23. The Town started off on the wrong foot by working first on the General Plan that had no penalties and no deadline. That went well over their estimated time period and no one in management, former mayors Ristow and Rennie, nor Town manager Prevetti, thought they needed to move immediately to the Housing Element.
The Town received its first rejection letter of the HE on 1/12/23. Since then, the Town has failed certification 5 additional times. It will be 2-3 months more before we have another shot at getting this across the goal line. In the meantime, more applications can be filed for non-conforming residential buildings.
A disastrous consequence of the Town’s failure is something called the “Builders Remedy”, long known by the Town to have severe penalties. It is a housing development streamlining tool that provides developers the option to file an application for a housing development project with at least 20 percent affordable housing that is not in conformance with a jurisdiction’s zoning or General Plan. That’s where we are now, 4 of which are Builders Remedies. More can be filed until the Town becomes certified but no other city we can find in our size range have more than 3 Builders Remedies.
What does this mean to you? By our calculations, the projects we currently have will create 1141 market rate units; 247 affordable; 3331 additional residents and 2000 more cars as the Town continues to narrow streets like Blossom Hill and Los Gatos Blvd. If you thought traffic was already bad? Brace yourself. Not only will we suffer these consequences, but our green house gases (aka pollution) which are already well below our goal will only worsen. What happens to the schools? What about water? Why has the Town refused to do a financial impact analysis? Why has the Town got their hand out for more of your tax money when they can’t even forecast correctly the next year? They Don’t Know! This is former Mayor’s Rennie and Ristow not holding the Manager accountable. They don’t care!
One of the new buildings will be 12 stories tall or twice the size of our current tallest building, the Penthouse Apartments. Four of the new buildings will be 7 stories and we will lose the Los Gatos Ace Hardware on the north end of town; the post office on the south, and the Los Gatos Lodge in the middle to new developments that prior to a Builder’s Remedy, could not be built.
In our opinion, Los Gatos’s top management, consisting of former mayors Ristow and Rennie who both managed Town Manager, Laurel Prevetti, have in the past two years caused the most disastrous situation this Town has ever suffered through. These three plus Councilmember Rob Moore all approved of doubling the density of Los Gatos back in 2022. Do you think there may be more going on than meets the eye?
On 12/5/23 the Council gave the Town Manager a raise of over $15,000, plus lifetime benefits, even though she was an integral part of letting this Housing Element fail. This is the person who has misled the entire Housing Element process over the past 3 years. Former mayor Ristow thinks Prevetti is due a $15,000 raise, plus benefits, that she will get for the rest of her life. That will end up more than $200,000 for each 10 year segment. For what?! Meanwhile, residents will have to live with 7 and 12 story buildings; abject failure meeting our affordable housing goals; massive traffic increases; reduction of traffic lanes; a bridge we can’t afford; water shortages, increased pollution, etc, This only gets worse.
The question should not be about giving the Town Manager a raise, but rather, the Council needs to let us know why they would want to keep someone with this track record on our payroll at all.
Christina C Rude
Although I am in favor, of course, of complying with the state mandate to provide more affordable housing in the town, there are fine locations for this kind of development along Los Gatos Blvd in the old car dealership lots.
I am specifically opposed to any development at the PO, a busy small town necessary service bordering our Town Plaza Park, or at Ace Hardware, a BUSY and essential business that can’t be replaced. Building housing over the top of Ace Hardware would satisfy both goals however, a mixed use solution.