Shoot-out over Mounted Patrol: Mounted Patrol and neighbors wrangle over number of events and plans for barns at central Woodside grounds Shoot-out over Mounted Patrol: Mounted Patrol and neighbors wrangle over number of events and plans for barns at central Woodside grounds (October 31, 2001)

By Andrea Gemmet

Almanac Staff Writer

For many local equestrian groups, the San Mateo County Mounted Patrol grounds in central Woodside are a real boon.

The rolling, 23-acre property is where the Portola Valley Pony Club holds an annual benefit. The San Mateo County Horsemen's Association holds several riding clinics and its annual horse show at the Patrol grounds, and the annual Fourth of July Junior Rodeo draws around 2,000 people.

But for some of its nearby neighbors, many of the events at the Mounted Patrol's grounds, located at 521 Kings Mountain Road, would be better located in the boonies than in the midst of a residential neighborhood.

The neighbors say the private men's club holds a full schedule of meetings and events from spring through fall, leaving them with scarcely a weekend from April to October free of the amplified yodeling of Cowboy Poetry nights, the clamor of horse shows, or loud music from dinner dances, wedding receptions and birthday parties.

They say they have no objections to the trail rides, the search and rescue activities or the Junior Rodeo, but they insist there are too many events for a property zoned for low-intensity open space use, with permission for six "medium-intensity" events per year.

Woodside officials are trying to sort out the dispute, ever since the Mounted Patrol came to Town Hall for permission to build two barns to stable 20 horses full-time on its grounds. The more-than-year-long quest to get the project approved has focused attention on neighbors' complaints about noise, traffic and odors emanating from the Mounted Patrol grounds, and opened up discussions about whether the current intensity of use is appropriate in a residential area.

The quarrel is figuring in the Woodside Town Council race, since the issue will not be resolved until after new council members are seated this fall.

It also focused attention on the state of the Mounted Patrol's facilities, which include a clubhouse, kitchen, restrooms, announcers booth and an arena, as well as a caretaker's cottage.

In May, the Woodside Planning Commission told the Mounted Patrol to take a few months to "clean up its act," by fixing up its grounds and reaching out to neighbors to try to resolve some of problems.

But the matter became so tangled that the Planning Commission attempted to divide up the issues, devoting a meeting in July to figuring out which events held at the Mounted Patrol grounds are either authorized by the use permits granted in the 1950s or are grandfathered under the town's rules because they existed prior to 1980 and have been ongoing since then. The commissioners determined that all of the existing events and uses are allowed.

Eight of the patrol's neighbors who still believe that the number of noisy events at the patrol grounds has increased in recent years filed an appeal of the Planning Commission's July decision to the Town Council, in hopes of getting that number reduced.

At a meeting on October 24, the Planning Commission tackled the barns issue, voting to approve the plans to construct two, 2,880-square-foot barns, provided the Mounted Patrol meets 24 conditions, including installing a fire hydrant, building a covered manure bin, and creating a drainage plan to prevent the pollution of Tripp Gulch stream. The commission members voted 3-1, with Stella Weng Kister opposed, and Diane Elder, Sara Jorgensen and K.C. Kelley absent.

Even if there's no appeal of the Planning Commission's recent decision on the barns, Woodside Planning Director David Rizk says the staff is unlikely to issue the barns permit until the appeal of the number of events is heard, which is tentatively scheduled for January.

"We probably will require that the other appeal that was filed be resolved first, because the two are interrelated," Mr. Rizk says, adding that he anticipates that the decision on the barns will also be appealed.

Dr. Bettina McAdoo, who lives adjacent to the patrol grounds, says the key issue that she and the other neighbors are trying to raise is that any increase in the amount of use of the Mounted Patrol grounds is going to have a significant impact on nearby residents, and that having 20 horses there full-time definitely represents an increase in use. Not horse-haters

Although she and the neighbors are appealing the earlier decision on the number of events, they have not yet decided whether to appeal the approval of the barns. She says that because the group of neighbors are complaining about the Mounted Patrol, they are viewed as being anti-equestrian.

"We're not against horses," Dr. McAdoo says.

Another of the Patrol's neighbors, Henry Wilder, explained it to the Planning Commission members this way: "The neighbors' objections are not to the horses, they are to the social events. This is not a horse problem."

For a town that cultivated an informal network of horse trails into an extensive system, and prides itself on being one of the few towns in the county that allows residents to keep horses on their properties, saying a Woodsider is anti-horse is quite an insult.

In Woodside, being unfriendly toward horses and the equestrian lifestyle is roughly equivalent to being opposed to motherhood, baseball and apple pie.

And the San Mateo County Mounted Patrol is surely one of the most visible representatives of Woodside's equestrian heritage and lifestyle. Uniformed Mounted Patrol members ride in Woodside's May Day Parade and Redwood City's Fourth of July parade each year, and the group's color guard can be seen at local charity events.
Mending fences

Budd Colby, the captain of the Mounted Patrol, says that members have put in hundreds of man-hours to improve the patrol grounds this summer, making electrical improvements required by town building codes as well as redoing the sound and lighting systems to reduce the impacts on neighbors.

Jerry Williams, the Mounted Patrol grounds manager, says that the patrol's sound system now has fewer loudspeakers, and the remaining ones have been relocated.

"Plus, we try not to use them as often as we did," he says.

The patrol also installed a phone line for comments and complaints which operates 24 hours a day, paging Mr. Williams, and distributed the phone number throughout the neighborhood. It is part of the group's efforts to improve communication with its neighbors, Mr. Colby says, and be sensitive to their concerns, whether they are about noise or dust, or anything else.

"We now have one of the most sophisticated sprinkling systems around to control the dust," he says.