|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Depending on your point of view, the year 2017 in Woodside was arguably good in terms of property rights and arguably bad in terms of traffic congestion, but it was also inarguably contentious.
In a development pleasing to property rights advocates, the municipal code now allows notably larger homes, and there’s a smoother regulatory path to building cottages or other types of housing affordable to people with lower incomes.
For anyone traveling state Highway 84, particularly the mountainous section between Portola Road and Skyline Boulevard, the year got a bad start and then got worse. Mud and rock slides caused by heavy winter rains in January and February either blocked the road or undermined it.
Drivers endured months of single-lane traffic, an invasion of traffic lights, and interminable waits as crews built massive retaining walls – a long-term solution that should make future winters safer.
As for contentiousness, shortly after the Town Council sidestepped dealing with an ethics complaint against one of its appointed officials, two of its members and the town government were accused of violating that official’s rights to free speech.
And there was the pig scramble. Children chased pigs at the July Fourth junior rodeo, as usual – a tradition that violates no laws – but 2017 brought out more protesters. Adults and children held signs complaining that the pig scramble is cruel to animals and teaches children to accept cruelty toward animals.
Protesters, organized as the Committee for a Humane Woodside, asked the town’s Livestock and Equestrian Heritage Committee in March to advise the Town Council that the event is cruel. The committee concluded that the pig scramble “does not meet the highest ideals” and issued a statement encouraging its “modification,” while noting that, to the committee’s knowledge, no pigs have been injured or killed.
The council chose not to act, arguing that attempting to ban a legal activity was not in their portfolio. Pig scramble opponents should take their complaints to the state Legislature, council members said.
Members of the Mounted Patrol of San Mateo County, which hosts the rodeo, dismissed the Humane committee’s complaints as attacks on American tradition and Western culture. A Patrol spokesman said the scramble would continue despite the protests. The protesters said they would be back in 2018.
Larger homes
Responding to pressure from residents of Woodside Heights, who in 2014 complained that nearby residents of Atherton had more generous floor area rules, the council in January granted an increase in floor area of up to 10 percent for the main residences throughout the town – when the property owner requests an exception.
While exceptions are normally subject to scrutiny of a project’s consistency with the town’s general plan, for example, the revised code now notes that exceptions regarding maximum house size “shall” be granted.
Woodside Heights residents cited the need for larger homes due to trends such as more in-home offices and extended families living together.
The new law caps floor area at 4,200 square feet for homes in the R-1 zoning area (Woodside Glens), at 5,500 square feet in the SR area (central Woodside and some neighborhoods east of Canada Road and Interstate 280), and 8,800 square feet in the remaining zones.
The proposal was the work of town officials and two representatives from the community deliberating behind closed doors in 2016. Resident Steve Lubin argued that community meetings should have been held rather than leaving the proposal’s crafting to a select subcommittee, and that council meetings are no substitute in that they are “highly charged where many people are hesitant to speak up.”
Then-mayor Deborah Gordon, who said she occasionally attended the deliberations, told the Almanac that she considers council meetings to be community meetings.
A settled matter
The council in February concluded a matter begun in May 2016 when former mayor Dave Burow alleged that Nancy Reyering, a member of the Architectural and Site Review Board, violated the town’s ethics code.
The complaint arose from an email Ms. Reyering sent to colleagues and the planning director. She commented on a project coming before the board, saying the applicant should refrain from the common practice of asking for exceptions to zoning regulations and design guidelines in light of the role of the applicant’s architect, Councilman Peter Mason, in approving zoning regulations and design guidelines.
Mr. Burow’s complaint included allegations that Ms. Reyering had attacked Mr. Mason and had reached a conclusion about a project before hearing testimony and before a public meeting had been held.
The subsequent investigation, required by the current ethics code, cost the town about $33,385, according to an attorney working for Ms. Reyering, and led to a report that recommended to the council that five of the nine allegations against her be sustained.
The code requires the council to hold a hearing to determine whether violations had occurred, but Mayor Tom Livermore recommended, and a council majority agreed, that “no further action” be taken, given that Ms. Reyering had allowed her membership on the board to expire.
Ms. Reyering filed a complaint alleging violation of her First Amendment rights to free speech and that Woodside’s ethics code, in the words of her attorney Scott Embidge, “infringes on a speaker’s right to engage in uninhibited, robust debate on public issues, including negative criticism … of public officials” and “creates an unacceptable risk of the suppression of ideas that are protected as part of a vibrant public discourse.”
The town settled in November, agreeing to hold a community workshop to evaluate the ethics code, and to pay Ms. Reyering $35,000 for her incurred legal expenses “as a good faith gesture and to avoid future litigation costs.” The payment brought the town’s total bill on the matter to at least $68,384.
IMO a residence over 4000 ft is not a home , it is a building. Probably an office / recreation building or multifamily building. Often it employs a regular staff of employees. And often way way above average use of water and utilities per persons.
Knock-knock.
Who’s there?
Nunya.
Nunya who?
Nunya business.
Knock Knock
Who’s there
Menlo Park Resident
*slams door in face*
But seriously. Who does MP think they are??