Los Altos Hills Councilmember Linda Swan will be back on city council this fall, with one of her goals in her second term focusing on maintaining the town’s rural environment.
Since the town’s founding in 1956, the area has brought people looking for a place to have horses and farm animals. Swan wants to have more local laws protecting the town’s rural character.
“I promoted trying to codify that by a vote of the people so that we could enshrine it, and it would take a vote of the people to undo it,” Swan said of protecting the rural aspects. “That’s one thing I was working on that we haven’t gotten done.”
Zoning is also an important consideration for the town’s future. Swan is open to converting from a general law city to a charter city, which Swan feels would allow more local control for the government and enshrine laws around a rural environment. A charter city provides more local governance control for an area, with about a quarter of the cities in California being charter law cities. Swan said the council didn’t bring it to the people for a ballot vote in 2024 because of a council divide about the timing. Addressing concerns about taxes allowed under a charter city, she noted that although more taxes would be allowed, the council would still have to go to a vote of the people before they would be implemented.
“I think it would be good,” Swan said of the charter city. “I think it gives the town more flexibility in responding to requirements from the state.”
State housing laws like Senate Bill 9 could also affect the rural aspects of Los Altos Hills if more housing is built. SB 9, also called the California HOME Act, streamlines the process of building a duplex or subdividing a single-family home lot into two equivalent-sized lots for further development.
Los Altos Hills also must create the zoning conditions for the construction of 489 new housing units in the 2023-2031 housing cycle as part of its housing element. The town had previously met its housing requirements through ADUs, which Swan wants to continue using. Swan noted that while some residents are upset about the housing element and its requitement that would increase housing, the state penalties for not meeting housing requirements are so draconian that the town has no other choice than to abide by the state’s mandates.
“There is a balancing act,” Swan said. “Of course, we have to comply with state law, and we already are in the process of rezoning some properties from multifamily to meet housing requirements.”
Swan noted the town was working with Foothill College on options and considering the residential cul-de-sac Twin Oak Court, which branches from Arastradero Road at the city’s north end, for farmworker and senior housing. Consultants estimate the three vacant parcels near where Arastradero crosses under Interstate 280 could become home to 112 housing units. Swan noted the owner of the lot was interested in potential housing in the area at Twin Oak Court.
Public safety also remains an important topic for Swan, as she noted that the council had already greatly increased town funding on public safety and brought in private patrols, with burglaries down in 2024 so far compared to previous years. Los Altos Hills had 61 burglaries in 2023, an issue that prompted many to neighborhoods to hire their own private security.
“I think right now we are probably at a good spending level and we can watch the trends and see what happens,” she said.
Swan noted the Sheriff’s Office had the flexibility to send in more officers when needed and was working to reduce response times. She pointed out that the spread-out nature of Los Altos Hills, the very organized nature of the burglars and burglary times in as quick as three minutes can make it difficult for deputies to stop them from happening after they’ve started.
“I don’t know how many officers you would have to have to respond within three minutes,” she said.
Los Altos Hills continues to work with the fire district to create firebreaks in the area to prevent fires from the west. Swan noted that wildfire preparedness is also a big issue. The CZU fire complex from August 2020 was the result of dry lightning and left 86,509 acres charred near Los Altos Hills.
Swan, Mayor Stanley Mok and Rajiv Bhateja will be on the council following an Aug. 22 meeting when the council appointed the three candidates to the three open positions on the council.
