Advisory committee sounds off on Portola Valley Town Center redesign Advisory committee sounds off on Portola Valley Town Center redesign (May 26, 2004)

** Limits impose tough choices.

By David Boyce
Almanac Staff Writer

With two weeks to go before the start of the community project to design a new Town Center complex at 765 Portola Road in Portola Valley, the Town Council is set to hear comments this week from a citizens advisory committee on how the space should best be used.

The May 26 meeting begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Historic Schoolhouse. The meeting will include an oral presentation from the Town Center Citizens Advisory Committee -- an ad hoc group of 37 volunteer residents formed by the council in the spring of 2003 to give residents a forum and a means of getting familiar with the issues driving the project.

Of approximately 1,600 surveys sent out April 29, residents returned 146. Popular choices from the 20 proposed uses included a library, a playground and a multi-use room, recreational fields, a playground and classrooms. The returned surveys had 16 write-in ideas, including a pre-school, a fitness center and a carpool site.

The Town Council is still considering criteria for eligible activities, but high on the list are serving a diverse community at a reasonable cost without ruining the 11.2-acre Town Center's park-like atmosphere. Space is at a premium. An earthquake fault runs through the site; only 4 acres are outside the rupture zone and eligible for construction.

The council plans to replace two structures: the administrative offices and an equipment-maintenance facility. The town received an anonymous pledge of $1 million toward construction if these structures are located in the Town Center.

The town has another $3.5 million in the bank. A majority of the advisory committee members said they were OK with an overall cost of $5 million to $15 million. Councilman Ted Driscoll said that while costs are unknown at this point, the town would not build what it could not afford.

Differing priorities

The advisory committee, which met eight times last year, reconvened Thursday, May 20, with about 30 residents, Mr. Driscoll and Councilman Richard Merk, and members of the town staff to comment on which of the 36 proposed activities would be best for Town Center.

Last year, though the committee studied rebuilding at Town Center and at several alternative sites in town, a majority of the members indicated a preference for keeping the buildings together at the Town Center. Majorities did not coalesce around any of the alternative sites.

"It's most prudent to get the library up and built because that's the facility that serves the most people and the most diverse number of people," said Lenora Ferro of Friends of the Library. A bigger library would be better, she said.

Susan Thomas, the cultural arts committee chair, noted that local schools have multi-use rooms, perhaps obviating the need to build one at the Town Center.

"We need to recommend that this campus should be a cultural, educational and athletic center. Move the offices somewhere else," said Bernie Bayuk emphatically, to applause.

Bill Lane -- retired publisher of Sunset Magazine -- noted that good design can make an equipment maintenance facility all but invisible.

Virginia Bacon championed a fitness center, particularly for the elderly, saying that promises of serving a diverse population aren't enough. "We have a moral, ethical and legal responsibility not to discriminate," she said.

"We have to be real about who is going to use it and are they going to come," said Cathy Behr. "We have to close the door sometime."

Mr. Driscoll predicted a good outcome despite the potential for controversy.

Next steps

On June 10 and 13, a collaborative design process involving three workshops will take place. Called a "charrette," the process assembles a group of architectural professionals, interested citizens and members of the Town Council and town staff to create two or three well-defined proposals. The council plans to meet June 30 to choose one proposal as the basis for a master plan.

INFORMATION

Representatives of the Town Center Citizens Advisory Committee are scheduled to give an oral presentation on appropriate uses of the Town Center to the Portola Valley Town Council at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 26, in the Historic Schoolhouse at 765 Portola Road.

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