|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
For some people, being labeled a nonconformist is a badge of honor, a recognition of independence in thought and deed.
Try telling that to homeowners in Woodside’s Glens neighborhood. Roughly 85 percent of the properties are too small to accommodate the town’s residential zoning development standards and have been labeled nonconforming, a designation that can dramatically increase the time and expense of building, adding to, or remodeling a home.
The Woodside Glens consists of 201 lots on 80 sloped acres east of Canada Road. The neighborhood was formed in the 1920s when San Francisco residents who could afford summer homes came south to the Glens to build them, according to Woodside Planning Director Jackie Young.
Glens residents now live year-round on lots originally considered right for summer homes, unlike lots found in the rest of the town. Residents who want to modify their homes have long faced development standards designed for parcels that are significantly larger.
In late September, Young and several Town Hall staff members met with around 40 Glens residents in Independence Hall to “take the temperature of what folks are thinking about,” Young said. For the Town Council, understanding and possibly easing the regulatory burden on residents of the Glens and other neighborhoods with “nonconforming” parcels is a priority.
During the two-hour meeting, Young collected comments for analysis on matters such as setbacks, building height, floor area, house size, entitlements – what you’re allowed to do on a property – and the impact of the label “nonconforming.”
One idea proposed by Planning Department staff: Declare that the minimum lot size eligible for subdivision in town is 20,000 square feet, “thus abandoning the term ‘legal nonconforming,’ which alarms property owners and buyers/sellers,” Young said in an email.
Rural character
Woodside is a residential community with “rural character” as a touchstone. What rural character means depends on who is talking. There is no agreed-upon definition.
The “rural residential” zoning district includes Mountain Home Road, where parcels must be at least 3 acres in size, with the front of a building located at least 50 feet from the public right-of-way. Somewhat smaller setbacks apply between buildings and property lines and streams.
In “suburban residential” zoning districts in Woodside Hills and Woodside Heights east of Interstate 280, the front setbacks are also 50 feet and the minimum lot size is 1 acre.
Zoning in the Glens, on paper, requires a lot size of at least 20,000 square feet, with front setbacks of 30 feet. In reality, lot sizes of 7,000 square feet are common. As for setbacks, it’s not hard to find buildings with none at all.
Glens resident Annie Kaskade said at the community meeting that about 25 percent of Glens homes have a garage, a home or both with a “zero-foot front setback.” Of some 25 homes along a one-way stretch of Hillside Drive, about 15 have “existing structures and usages” with no setbacks at all, she said.
Glens homeowners with building projects at odds with residential zoning standards usually need a variance, which involves a hearing before the Planning Commission and initial fees of $1,500 to $2,500. But that is just the beginning, according to Kaskade. Before an applicant appears in any public hearing, “a host of studies is required,” she said.
Applicants may need a survey, drawings and engineering and geotechnical reports, and they are subject to architect fees for plan changes, she said. It can add up to “many tens (of thousands of dollars) or more,” Kaskade said.
“The rules,” said Glens resident Matt Garr, “don’t align with what the neighborhood was meant to be.” The nonconforming label is “a little bit pejorative” and an indication of standards written “from a perspective of a fundamentally different category of zoning,” he said.
While the Glens has some rural character, “it’s not the same character as the 22-acre lots on Mountain Home (Road),” he said. “If it’s a 7,000-square-foot lot, it’s not rural. It’s suburban.”
Representative standards
“People move here thinking that they can make the home better,” said Glens resident Stacia Garr in an interview. “It turns out to be so much harder than they initially thought. … It’s a hard situation. It’s hard when you feel like you’re not being heard.”
Her husband Matt, when asked if he felt that he had been heard at the community meeting, noted that town officials wrote down the discussion points. The proof, he said, will be in a new set of guidelines that reflect the actual neighborhood.
“We love Woodside,” Stacia Garr said, but added that young families moving to the Glens want more from their homes. “We do think that if people want to improve their homes, there should be a straightforward way to do that,” she said.
Under current rules, to build a reasonably sized deck at the Garr house, the couple would need to explain their search for alternatives, explain why there would be no significant impacts on the environment and neighbors’ privacy, and explain why the project is consistent “in spirit and intent” with the zoning ordinance and the town’s general plan.
What’s next for the Glens? The Planning Commission meets at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 14, to review comments from the September public discussion and the results of a recent survey asking the Glens community to comment on ideas proposed for revising the development standards.
The commission meets in Independence Hall at 2955 Woodside Road.
Redwood City attorney sues ‘First Amendment auditors’ after Menlo Park disputeApril 2, 2026 11:31 am
The Glens is a fire trap. Narrow streets barely wide enough to accommodate a fire truck, homes without garages so cars are parked on the narrow roadways. High density, overgrown vegetation ready to fuel an out of control fire. Glen residents are on their own when the wildland fire ultimately visits. The fire department isn’t going to go in there risking personnel and equipment. It will simply burn. One main exit out of the subdivision of 200 homes and a secondary emergency escape route that won’t lead to safety.
And what will the policy of Woodside be after the disaster? Let people rebuild on the same substandard nonconforming lots with even bigger homes?
Much of Woodside is a fire trap with single access and exit roads to join the main arteries that will surely be clogged with traffic in a fire emergency.
More exit roads are sorely needed to avoid a disaster and certain tragedy.
To the points argued by the residents, they are spot on. The glens and other “non-conforming” lots are held to unreasonable standards by the planning rules, and have to incur 10s of thousands in extra costs, if not more, to have simple changes done in a neighborhood chock-full of similar properties.
It’s outrageous and needs to change to reflect reality.
And the area needs more entry / exit points for fire safety reasons.