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N E W S
Supes limit big houses
in Los Trancos Woods
By Marion Softky
Almanac Staff Writer
From now on, you won’t be
able to build a really big
— say 6,000- to 16,000square-foot
— house on most
lots in Los Trancos Woods, even
if the new sewers can serve it.
On Sept. 11, the San Mateo
County Board of Supervisors
amended the zoning for 137 lots
in the former summer-home community
to limit the size of houses
that can be built in two zones.
The new zoning replaces the
old means of calculating maximum
house size with a new
formula that bases total square
footage of a house on the size of
the lot. For a lot of 7,500 square
feet, the maximum house will
be 3,200 square feet. For larger
lots, the maximum house size
will increase by 10 percent of the
lot area above 7,500 square feet.
Under the new zoning, a halfacre
lot can support a house of
4,628 square feet, according to
the county staff report.
More than 16,000 square feet
could be built under previous zoning,
which allowed a three-story
house to cover 25 percent of the lot.
Amazingly, no one from the
community spoke at the hearing,
either for or against the dramatic
change in zoning restrictions.
Planning Director Lisa Grote
presented the zoning amendments
for two areas of the foothill
community. The board voted
unanimously for the new limits.
Supervisor Rich Gordon congratulated
the community on
coming together to support
a compromise on maximum
house size. He recalled the first
community meetings about eight
years ago as full of “contention,
disagreement, and argument.”
“Sewers were the impetus,”
said Armin Staprans of Los
Trancos Woods, who chaired
the semi-official committee
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that finally came up with the
compromise adopted last week.
Sewers for small wooded lots
that often have problems with
septic tanks have been under
discussion in the community for
almost 10 years. Finally, in June,
legal and financial issues had been
resolved, and construction started
on sewers that will serve some 60
lots — for starters. They should
begin service this winter.
Sewers mean that much larger
houses can be built. With no sewers,
the size of a house is limited by
the capacity of the lot to support a
septic tank drain field; with sewers,
that limitation goes away, and house
size is determined by zoning.
“In the beginning, the subject
was very contentious,” Mr. Staprans
said. Some people wanted to keep
house sizes way down, while property
rights advocates wanted no
limits. “We really got nowhere; the
county threw up its hands.”
As it became clear that the sewers
were coming, Mr. Staprans and
his group came together to seek
common ground. They decided
not to tinker with zoning details
like setbacks, height and slope, he
explained. Instead, the committee
focused on a formula that related
total floor area to lot size.
“We found the neighborhood
could live with that,” Mr. Staprans
said. “We were racing with sewers.”
A survey of the community
generated an 86 percent response;
72 percent supported the compromise,
Ms. Grote reported.
As the time neared for sewer
construction to begin, the county
revived the planning effort.
A community meeting in June
drew strong support, and the
Planning Commission approved
the community proposal in
August, with no opposition.
“Everyone was notified,” Mr.
Staprans said. “Under the previous
zoning, you could build a
9,000-square-foot house on a
sixth of an acre.” A
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40358
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When we set out
to change the community,
we started by changing ourselves.
The counties of San Mateo and Santa Clara have
always stood for imagination and innovation. So when
it came to dreaming up ways to better serve the
region, we imagined a new way forward for ourselves.
The new Silicon Valley Community Foundation
resulted from the historic merger of Peninsula
Community Foundation and Community Foundation
Silicon Valley in January 2007. The new community
foundation combines more than $1.9 billion in assets
with a priceless portfolio of expertise and experience -
in turn creating a catalyst for change greater than the
sum of its parts. Imagine that.
2440 West El Camino Real, Suite 300 | Mountain View, California 94040-1498
tel: 650.450.5400 | fax: 650.450.5401 | www.siliconvalleycf.org
September 19, 2007 ■ The Almanac ■ 15