Talks to redesignate parts of the O’Keefe Open Space Preserve in Los Altos Hills for potential housing use has drawn criticism from nearby residents concerned about the impacts.
A Los Altos Hills Nov. 17 council listening discussion centered around the feasibility of a potential ballot measure to redesignate a portion of the O’Keefe property from its current open space preserve to multifamily residential and to remove the voter approval requirement for conveyance of the land for multifamily housing. The O’Keefe property site is vacant land owned by the town and is adjacent to Highway 280/Junipero Serra Freeway and El Monte Road, not far from Foothill College. Los Altos Hills has a certified Housing Element, but the town is looking at rezoning parts of the O’Keefe property to allow multifamily housing to maintain adequate potential sites in the future to meet its housing obligations required by the state. City staff said a council ad hoc committee formed to explore alternative sites identified the O’Keefe property as a potentially suitable housing site.
To change the property zoning, it would require a ballot measure from the public to amend the town’s 2002 Open Space Initiative, which redesignated several properties, including the O’Keefe property, around town into an open space preserve, according to a city staff report. If residents gathered enough signatures, the citizen-sponsored initiative could be scheduled to appear on the June or November 2026 ballot.
Several speakers at the Nov. 17 meeting expressed concern about how development would affect the area’s environmental and rural aspects. Others worried about traffic impacts on nearby roads and what they felt was an inadequate time and notice to review the proposal. Los Altos Hills resident Sue Welch said she could not support the proposed draft initiative without specific plans about any sale or lease and how the development would be carried out. There are currently no specific housing plans for the site. Welch has proposed using the O’Keefe property as a potential site for multifamily housing with certain conditions.
“Residents have a right to know what is proposed for the site before voting for this plan,” Welch said in a letter to the town. “The current plan lacks sufficient information about how the site will be developed.”
The council said that the Nov. 17 meeting was only a listening session and that any proposal would need to be resident-led. Los Altos Hills Mayor Kavita Tankha noted that changing the open space designation was not something the council wanted to do but it had limited options, given there is no commercial land in Los Altos Hills.
“There is no good solution, that’s the reality,” Tankha said. “What we are trying to find is the best solution in the circumstances.”
Vice Mayor Rajiv Bhateja said he didn’t believe the town needed to go that far just yet, preferring something that would ask citizens to allow the council to take it out of open space if it’s required to prevent the builder’s remedy.However, he noted there were concerns about being out of compliance with state housing laws that could result in the builder’s remedy, which allows developers to avoid local zoning requirements if a city’s housing element is noncompliant.
“We are uncomfortable with the idea of putting multifamily housing on O’Keefe,” Bhateja said. “The alternative, if we have a decertification, is to essentially have multifamily housing everywhere, potentially.”
According to a Los Altos Hills staff report, “the draft initiative would allow the town to sell, convey or lease portions of the O’Keefe property for multifamily residential uses,” but would not change the open space area towards the southern end of the property. The proposal would also preserve the Purissima Creek stream bed, which runs through the property, as well as a 50-foot setback area from the top of the creek bank on either side of the creek.
