COMMENT ⊗   VALID 00003 PAGES
C REC  PAGE   DESCRIPTION
C00001 00001
C00002 00002								501 Portola Road
C00012 00003	I have talked with several people about the need for a pool at The
C00014 ENDMK
C⊗;
							501 Portola Road
							Portola Valley, Calif.  
							September 9, 1978

 Mr. Elmer Hutchisson, President
 The Sequoias Residents Council

 This letter is to  put on record certain  facts regarding the alleged  "housing
 tract next  door"  and  to  recommend action  by  the  Council  regarding  this
 situation.

 The facts of the situation are roughly as follows:

 The Portola  Town  council  is  considering  a  new  Zoning  Ordinance  and  it
 apparently had  not  acted  on  this  when  its  temporary  moratoriun  on  the
 acceptance of subdivision plans expired.

 A developer, who has an option on the property to the rear of The Sequoias, and
 who thought that he could  get in on the General  Plan before the final  Zoning
 Ordiance was adopted, filed a tentative Subdivision Map.

 Instead of acting on this plan, the Town Council chose to impose a six  month's
 moratorium extention.  Because of  this, the Subdivision Map  can not be  acted
 upon and it will undoubtedly be modified to reflect the conditions specified by
 the Zoning Ordinance when it is finally adopted.

 In view of the situation, it would be useless for us, at this time, to hold the
 proposed meeting with Mr. Chafin, the Town Planning Coordinator as planned  for
 September 14th. and  this meeting should  be cancelled, if  it has not  already
 been cancelled  by Mr.  Dillon.  Actually,  this  plan to  have a  meeting  was
 perhaps ill advised in any case for the reasons that I will outline.

 The owner of the property, or the  developer should he exercise his option  and
 buy the property, has every legal  right to develop his property, subject  only
 to such  zoning and  general building  restrictions that  the Town  of  Portola
 Valley and  the State  of California  might impose.   After all,  he  certainly
 purchased the property with a view  towards it ultimate development and he  and
 earlier owners have been paying taxes on this property over the years with this
 eventuallity in mind.

 The town of Portola  Valley has been  quite forsighted in  its handling of  the
 general situation as witnessed by the recent development of the Portola  Valley
 Farms where extraordinary pains were taken to  see that the new homes fit  into
 the landscape with a minimum of disruption and harm to the natural  vegetation.
 Actually, for all we might decry the spread of urban housing, the population is
    The dominant mode is the NORMAL mode.  This allows for page, window
 increasing and people must have somewhere to live.

 When The  Sequoias  planned  to  build  in  Portola  Valley,  there  were  many
 tax-paying residents of Portola Valley who bitterly opposed our building  here,
 in this  case  with  perhaps  more justification  than  we,  as  non-tax-paying
 persons, can  now  muster.   The  Sequoias ,  by  building  here,  removed  its
 building site from the tax rolls, while the current proposal will increase  the
 town's tax base.

 Our relationship with the  town has been  improving with time  and it would  be
 presumptious, and actually not in our own self interest for us to try to  throw
 our weight around  in town affairs.   After all, the  matter of our  tax-exempt
 status has come up in  the past and it  is sure to come  up again and we  could
 easily stir up enough opposition to endanger our continued tax-exempt status.

 The orderly development of the land between  us and Sky-line is, of course,  of
 concern to all forward  looking people.  The San  Andrais fault happens to  lie
 immediately to  the rear  of  our property  and  happily or  perhaps  unhappily
 prevents the use of the  land for some distance, so  we are protected from  the
 close approach of buildings.  The town of Portola Valley is well aware of  this
 situation, and I  believe it  can be  trusted to see  that the  plans are  well
 conceived and well executed.

 Perhaps our only cause for concern has to do with the road that is just  beyond
 our fence. This road has been there for many years, but it will now be  improve
 and it  will be  an access  road, but  not the  main access  road, to  the  new
 development.  We  will  undoubtedly  find  it desirable  to  build  a  six-foot
 red-wood fence to replace the present barbed-wire fence.

 The Sequoias may stand to gain from the development in at least three ways.

 1) This will be  an opportune time  for us to  see if we  might not acquire  an
 additional strip  of land  to the  north for  additional badly-needed  parking,
 either as open parking or preferably as an additional car port. This matter was
 looked into quite some years  ago but at that time  the property owner was  not
 then willing to sell any of the property.

 2) The developer will  be required to provide  walking and riding trails  which
 many people at The Sequoias would welcome.  These trails will not automatically
 give us a trail clear  to sky-line, as the property  does not extend this  far,
 but it would be a start.  The trails in the Portola Farms development are being
 increasingly used  by  some of  our  people and  trails  closer to  home  would
 certainly be welcome.

 3) With  suitable prompting  the developer  might consider  the addition  of  a
 swimming pool to the development  and he might be  induced to let residents  of
 The Sequoias make use of this pool, of course at some price, but this would  be
 vastly more convenient than are the existing pools.

 In view of these considerations, I suggest that the Council appoint a committee
 to review the situation  and to make  a formal recommendation to  us as to  the
 best way for  us or  for the  NCPH to  proceed, with  a view  of meeting  these
 objectives. I further  suggest that no  overt actions be  undertaken until  the
 this report is in hand.

						 Respectfully submitted



						 Arthur L. Samuel
I have talked with several people about the need for a pool at The
Sequoias and I have recieved one suggestion that is rather interesting to
wit:

If The Sequoias or more specificly the NCPH is unwilling to acquire a pool
or access to a pool then perhaps there would be enough people here who
would be willing to band togather and privately acquire the necessary land
adjacent to The Sequoias and build a pool for their own use.