Portola Valley celebrates its 50th anniversary

● Portola Valley holds celebration event on Sunday, Sept. 21. Read story.

By Dave Boyce | Almanac Staff Writer

Portola Valley, which was incorporated 50 years ago, is well preserved. Not in the way of a fossil, unchanging and valuable for what it reveals about the past, but in the way of a bonsai, a living thing diligently cared for over many years so as to complement its assets and allow them to be displayed to their best advantage.

The town has the appearance of an open space, with an abundance of trees and scenes of meadows and trails without much evidence of human presence.

There are retail hubs, but they’re small and scattered so as to create a character that some have described as rural. The vehicle traffic belies that, and implies a particular kind of rural — one in which the open spaces are not merely agricultural lands lying fallow, but are intentional and protected.

Portola Valley was born of years of effort by a group of residents who, time after time, beat back developers interested in building dense housing on the valley floor and the green slopes overlooking it. The residents incorporated as a town in 1964, which took land-use control away from the county and conferred it on a town government.

A core principle of the town, first articulated by Sam Halsted, a founding member of the Town Council, is to be an urban open-space preserve, said George Mader, Portola Valley’s first and its longest serving town planner. That principle set the stage for what was to come, he said.

As important as what Portola Valley would be was what it would not be. It would not be a location for businesses, services or employment centers that were already available in nearby communities, Mr. Mader said. Any business that did locate there would have to offer services needed by Portola Valley residents.

This was not out of step with the community before incorporation, Mr. Mader said. The San Mateo County general plan designated the area as appropriate for low population density, located as it was on the western edge of residential development on this side of the Coast Range and removed from major transportation corridors and employment centers.

Fifty years later, that description still applies, despite being minutes away from a concentration of Silicon Valley industries intensely devoted to disrupting the status quo. Over the decades, volunteers in town have taken it upon themselves to do whatever was necessary to maintain the town’s character.

Dealing with disrupters

It’s only natural that Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and executives, whose day jobs are all about being disruptive and leading the charge, might want to echo those predilections in their choice of architecture in a community of high-net-worth residents.

Portola Valley has its share of Silicon Valley movers and shakers, occasionally including someone not used to being questioned, someone for whom the phrase, “You can’t tell me what I can build,” flows easily off the tongue, Mr. Mader said.

Disruptive ideas for architecture and landscaping, if any, face close scrutiny by the town’s design gatekeeper, the Architectural and Site Control Commission, an all-volunteer group, chosen by the Town Council, that regularly meets on Mondays nights twice a month.

“In my opinion, the town has been very good in dealing with people to help them get what they want,” Mr. Mader said. Among the important points in the town’s control of home building are proportion, balance, color, reflectivity, building materials and compatibility with the site and its vegetation. Applicants appearing before the ASCC have been known to return with thanks for the panel’s cooperative spirit in moving projects toward mutually acceptable designs, Mr. Mader said.

There is room for individual expression as well as good design, Mr. Mader said. “Portola Valley does not dictate architectural style,” he said. “The idea is to have (designs) be compatible with the valley.”

Unique circumstances

That Portola Valley has problematic geology has never been a secret. The San Andreas fault runs through the town. A photograph from 1906 in the book, “Life on the San Andreas Fault: A History of Portola Valley,” shows the extensive damage the San Francisco earthquake did to Alpine Road.

This 2003 coffee table book, co-written by town historian Nancy Lund and Pamela Gullard, tells the early story of the valley, the forces that forged the community into a town, and the many and varied personalities involved.

The valley might have remained a second-home community for city dwellers, given its notorious earthquake fault and the difficulty of acquiring water supplies for agricultural enterprises. Instead, it’s become a desirable bedroom community, a situation that can be credited to some innovative thinking about where it’s safe to build.

There are steep slopes, but regulations have evolved to make it difficult and often illegal to build on them. The inherent penalties of such construction excessive grading, destruction of trees, unstable ground and inordinately long roads proved to be too high, Mr. Mader said.

“You can build safely on steep hillsides if its done appropriately,” Mr. Mader said, pointing to San Francisco as an example. “The result, however, is not the open-space quality of Portola Valley.”

Ted Sayre, Portola Valley’s town geologist, spoke at a recent joint meeting of the Town Council, the ASCC and the Planning Commission. Town officials and their geological consultants have an “unusually close collaboration” that has led to innovative and effective land-use approaches and planning for land use, he said.

Exhibit A is the Portola Valley Ranch subdivision, a renowned example of cluster housing designed in the 1970s on 453 acres, parts of which are seismically unstable.

When it was county land, this area was zoned for one-acre lots. After incorporation, Mr. Mader said, he and others campaigned to convince the Town Council to put aside the “one acre and two horses” zoning mantra of the time and go with clusters of homes on smaller plots that have both privacy and views.

The result: “open and airy” homes with floor plans “modified to fit around existing oaks or outcroppings of rock,” as Ms. Lund and Ms. Gullard describe the subdivision in their book. Colors are earth tones and every effort is made to blend the homes into the surroundings.

Each home has a “significant view” of parts of the 365 undeveloped acres that are now permanent open space and that include the geologically unstable sectors, Mr. Mader said.

Any volunteers?

There is little of consequence, sometimes even of no consequence, that goes unnoticed in Portola Valley. That the town looks and functions as it does is thanks to the many volunteers and their deep engagement with an intentionally small government in Town Hall.

Volunteers get together or have gotten together to pull invasive weeds; to discuss bicycle, pedestrian and traffic safety on the roads; to ensure rich opportunities for children to consider nature and science; to discuss affordable housing as it relates to state mandates; to design and raise $17 million from residents to pay for a new Town Center complex.

That extraordinary fundraising campaign got started with a major gift from Bill and Jean Lane. Mr. Lane was considered the key player in founding the town and he was a regular presence at Town Council meetings until just before he died in 2010.

The environment is a prominent concern. Six of the town’s 17 volunteer committees have an environmental focus. The Ad-Hoc Water Conservation Task Force, formed early in 2014, has a mission that is self-explanatory, given the drought. A community forum, co-hosted with conservation counterparts in Woodside, is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 18, at the Portola Valley Town Center.

The Conservation Committee’s new Backyard Habitat program rewards residents for their efforts to integrate native species of plants and animals into the daily lives of their properties. A recognition ceremony for the 2014 winners is set for the anniversary celebration on Sunday, Sept. 21, at Town Center.

The twin threats of earthquake and wildfire are also a high priority. Volunteers and town staff are deeply engaged in preparing for such emergencies. Portola Valley is literally at the end of the road and may have to fend for itself for days after a major disaster. Such threats are the business of the Emergency Preparedness Committee.

● Click here for more on the town’s committees and opportunities to participate.

● See Marion Softky’s story on Portola Valley turning 40.

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