With a divided vote, the Los Altos Hills City Council Wednesday (June 3) struck down a proposed 45-day moratorium on substandard lot development.
Mayor Courtenay C. Corrigan and Councilmember John Radford cast dissenting votes opposing the moratorium on conditional development permit (CDP) applications. For the moratorium to pass, at least four of the five councilmembers needed to vote in favor of it.
“I’m not happy with some of what’s going on, but I think our current rules are sufficient,” Radford said.
Councilmembers John Harpootlian, Rich Larsen and Gary Waldeck voted in support of the moratorium.
CDP applications are required for expansion or new development when a residential property’s Lot Unit Factor – indicating how large a home can be – is less than half an acre. Although the town’s founding documents indicate a standard of 1-acre lot sizes, there are at least 50 lots of half an acre or less in Los Altos Hills.
Planning commission members have formed an ad hoc committee to examine existing CDP regulations, including the acceptable number of variances and exceptions allowed in conjunction with CDPs.
Approximately 20 Los Altos Hills residents and developers spoke during the public comment session of the morning meeting, an estimated half of whom favored the moratorium.
