Howard C. Anawalt

To the Los Gatos/Monte Sereno Community

Re: Catch 22--Uses in the North Forty

For months now residents in the Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, and county communities have raised interesting and valuable approaches to using the land in the North Forty. These proposed uses do not coincide with the commercial juggernaut represented in the current Specific Plan.

Interested residents are often told the following two things.

1) We need to adopt the Specific Plan right away. This is false. It makes no sense to adopt a flawed Specific Plan. Furthermore, if the Town adopts a poor Specific Plan, inertia will favor its continuance. Developers will act upon it. A weary Town Council and community will likely follow the course it has suggested. Arguments will emerge that the new General Plan should allow what has been adopted in the Specific Plan.

2) The Specific Plan can not contradict the Town General Plan. This is true. However, it is not true that the community must either adopt the Specific Plan or wait for a new General Plan. The General Plan may be amended. As I understand it this can be done rather rapidly and with no prejudice to a new General Plan. "A general plan is adopted or amended by resolution. Unlike some other resolutions, these resolutions do not take effect until the 30 day period for referendum passage has elapsed." Curtin's California Land Use and Planning Law (1997), page 20.

The current General Plan contains some rather specific plans for the Vasona Corridor. Some of these are said to preclude community development, including the statement that "no residential development shall be allowed" in the North Forty. These restrictions were themselves either adopted or amended in April 1994.

People have watched for months as Town officials have said what can not be done to achieve beauty and community in the North Forty. The General Plan itself states that the "overarching principle guiding land use" in the North Forth "is that development shall be community oriented, transit oriented, and pedestrian oriented."

I urge Town officials to act with alacrity to promote fruitful planning for the general area. We need a northern entry and environment that favors people, families, recreation, access to transportation, housing, and commerce that favors the overall community environment. If >we need residences, play fields, open space, community facilities, then lets us plan for them.

There is no Catch 22. The Town can recognize its needs and desires and act upon them. Amend the General Plan right away if need be. General Plans were never intended to frustrate community will. To the contrary, they are intended to foster sensible community development.