Atherton investigating water capture facility at Menlo College

It’s been nearly four months since Atherton City Council members, responding to protests from neighbors and visitors of Holbrook-Palmer Park, said they wanted to find a new location for a planned massive underground water storage and filtering facility.

The town is hoping Menlo College might be that location. The underground facility would filter trash and pollutants from runoff water on its way to the Bay and provide some flooding protection to the town. The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) has offered to pay the entire cost of the project, which would help it meet state mandates for reducing pollutants in water that runs off its highways.

A report on the project, which would still need to clear multiple hurdles before approval, says some of the Caltrans funding may be forfeited because it has taken so long for project plans to be approved.

For now, the council is only being asked to approve asking consultants for bids to do an environmental impact report on a possible project. The town has had preliminary negotiations with Menlo School and Menlo College officials. City Manager George Rodericks said Menlo officials are willing to let the town investigate the details of putting the facility on their property but want “to know the details, design and impacts.”

The item is on the Wednesday, Sept. 19, council meeting agenda’s consent calendar, meaning it can be approved with no discussion by the council unless a council member or someone in the audience asks to have it removed from the consent calendar.

The town, in a 2015 drainage master plan, identified the need for stormwater detention basins to reduce flooding risks.

Atherton also has a state mandate to reduce pollutants flowing to the Bay. The drainage master plan envisions large, slightly depressed grassy areas where water could be diverted in flood conditions. The facility Caltrans has offered to pay for is much more elaborate. It would divert the water deep underground, and it would require much less above-ground land area.

The residents who protested the facility being built in the park said they feared it would negatively impact the park, and that the construction process itself would be hard on neighbors, many of whom also live near the site where a new civic center will be built.

Also on the meeting agenda are several public hearings:

• Final adoption of an ordinance that would charge residents if police respond to four or more false alarms in a 12-month period.

The fine would apply to any false alarm requiring a police response, whether or not the system is directly monitored by the police department. If the police are notified that an alarm is false before responding it will not count.

The town offers to monitor the alarm systems on Atherton properties at no cost. The ordinance would also increase the fee for registering an alarm with the town from $61 to $100 and add an annual fee of $50.

• Consideration of raising the fees for renting the Jennings Pavilion in Holbrook-Palmer Park. At the suggestion of the caterer the town contracts with to manage rentals in the park, the town wants to raise the cost of renting the pavilion to “market rates.”

While some of the proposed rate increases are relatively modest from $700 to $800 for a half-day rental Monday through Thursday other proposed rates would more than triple the current rental cost. For example, the rental rate for Fridays from 5 p.m. to midnight would jump from $1,200 to $4,000.

Renters also pay administrative fees of 15 percent for Atherton residents and 30 percent for non-residents.

• An appeal by the owners of 370 Walsh Road. The town has ordered the property owners to either demolish the home on the property or bring the home up to code. Construction started on the home in 1978 and has never been completed.

The council will also discuss details of continuing efforts to redesign the town’s new civic center after bids on the project to build a new library and police and administrative offices came in far over the town’s budget.