Woodside OKs subdivision on Brown Adobe estate Woodside OKs subdivision on Brown Adobe estate (June 30, 2004)

** Owners object to trail and conservation easements.

By Andrea Gemmet
Almanac Staff Writer

You can't always get what you want. For property owners who wanted to lose some of the conditions imposed on a plan to carve two, 5-acre lots out of the 41-acre Schroll estate in Woodside, an appeal to the Town Council came up short.

One of Woodside's unique pieces of land, the Schroll estate on Portola Road is home to the Charles Brown Adobe, considered to be San Mateo County's oldest structure.

The subdivision was approved by the Planning Commission in April, but the current owners of the property, represented by the Schroll Trust, objected to requirements for trail easements, and wanted to codify smaller conservation easements surrounding the Alambique Creek and the pond and weir on the property. The appeal asked the Town Council to overturn the Planning Commission's decision.

At the June 22 meeting, the council agreed to some minor changes requested by the property owners, but clearly didn't put much stock into arguments made by their attorney Laurence Mays about the legality of requiring dedicated horse-trail easements.

Councilman Pete Sinclair objected to Mr. Mays' assessment that requiring horse trails amounted to illegal taking of property by the town and violated federal, state and local law.

"It's not a taking," Mr. Sinclair said. "It's an exchange of value. We ask for a trail in exchange for parcels being created."

Council members, along with several members of the public who spoke at the meeting, said they couldn't understand the objection to trail easements that would reopen the so-called center fault trail that crosses the Schroll property and add links so that the two new parcels would be connected to the town's trail system.

"I just don't get it," said Councilman Carol Ann Hodges. "The owners are horsemen, they bought one of our few commercial stables and turned it into a private stable," she said, referring to Tom and Stacey Siebel's purchase of the Charter Oak Farms stable in 2002.

The Siebels sat through the meeting but declined to respond to any of the questions directed at them, and in fact, were never explicitly named as the people behind First Virtual, the owner of the estate along with Christopher Schroll.

Nancy Cronin, the court-appointed trustee of the property, also refused to name the property owners.

It was clearly frustrating for council members, who wanted to know why the subdivision's initial application, which included a 300-foot conservation easement around the pond and weir, a 100-foot conservation easement along the Creek and a special historic preservation easement for the Charles Brown adobe, was changed so dramatically.

The revised application cut the pond easement by two-thirds and the creek easement in half, and eliminated the historic easement.

A biological assessment of the property found suitable habitat for two threatened species, including the red-legged frog, and recommended the larger easements. Mr. Mays, the attorney for the property owners, argued that the appropriate time to deal with conservation easements would be in the future, when there was a proposal to build something.

The conservation easements would restrict, but not eliminate, future building and would give Woodside officials the right to occasionally inspect them for compliance.

After a lengthy discussion, the council decided to keep the condition for the larger 300-foot and 100-foot easements.

The subdivision went through on a 6-0 vote, with Sue Boynton absent.

The council eliminated a horse-trail easement along the Portola Road frontage, one of the equestrian easements required by the Planning Commission, on a 5-1 vote, with Ms. Hodges opposed. Council members also gave the property owners the option of creating a new trail to connect to the center fault trail or to simply open up and dedicate the connection to the existing trail through the property, on a 6-0 vote.

E-mail a friend a link to this story.