Portola Valley: Sausal Creek subdivision could get a green light Portola Valley: Sausal Creek subdivision could get a green light (June 29, 2005)

By David Boyce

Almanac Staff Writer

Nine years after the project was approved, ground may be broken soon to build senior housing -- five single-family, single-story houses -- on the 1.4-acre plot at 846 Portola Road, adjacent to Portola Valley's Village Square shopping center.

A below-market-rate home on the foundation of an existing one-story wooden house near Portola Road is also planned.

A public hearing on the project began at the Planning Commission's June 15 meeting and will continue at the meeting scheduled for July 6, when the commission could give the project a green light. The project's environmental study finds no significant negative environmental impacts.

Project drawings show five homes clustered around a cul de sac and adjacent to Sausal Creek. The homes will be available to people age 62 or older, said Thomas Lodato, a partner in Atherton-based Sausal Creek Associates, which owns the property.

To accommodate elderly residents, the homes will have doorways that are wider than usual to accommodate wheelchairs, low counters and similar elements, said Mr. Lodato. Each of the houses would have a parking space in a common garage, with additional on-site parking.

The Planning Commission initially approved the project in December 1995. A neighbor appealed that decision, but the Town Council rejected the appeal some four months later.

Action has been delayed because of flooding concerns and a complicated effort to craft a retaining wall to restore and protect a sweeping bend of land on the creek bank that had been undercut by water during the winter storms of 1997, said planning consultant Tom Vlasic in a June 9 memo.

Flooding concerns are addressed by elevating each townhouse on a pad so that they sit above the 1 to 2 feet of water that should flow through the site during a 100-year flood, project representatives said.
INFORMATION

For more information, call Portola Valley's Building, Planning and Engineering Department at 851-1701, ext. 16.

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