The parking lot proposal for Cañada Corners that has been submitted to the Town will eliminate the favorite route to school for many kids without providing replacement. It wil create more asphalt, more traffic, a massive retaining wall and more congestion but does not consider how to walk in the town center.

The Roberts’ retail businesses have been the heart of the Town for decades.  The Roberts family has provided the retail services which keep the town center alive, sometimes forgoing rent to keep important businesses going.  It is important that they have the parking to be successful
but we also need to balance parking with accessibility for all users.

In September of 2020 proponents of Measure A asked for my support.  They proposed that the measure would provide
community gathering spaces and a pedestrian friendly town center.

I responded that the issues to overcome in the town center
could not be resolved on a piecemeal basis.
Pedestrian friendly spaces cannot be created with only public land or
with only private land. The
commercial property owners are good at protecting their private interests but we
need the Town to look out for public interests.

Woodside voted 1160 to 1156 to approve Measure A and allow expanded parking. Voters believed that Measure A would provide us a town center
with outdoor dining and gathering spaces.

The Town and the parties involved in writing this initiative
did not publicize the fact that in addition to the voter-initiated restriction
on parking behind the existing lot, the Town owned an open space easement on
the property.

This open space easement as well as equestrian and
bicycle/pedestrian easements were obtained in 1979 as a condition of a major
expansion of the then-existing use. The
expansion included the conversion of Leo’s Garage to retail space and the addition
of buildings which now house Emily Joubert, the cleaners, the beauty parlor and
the hardware store.

The open space
easement was designed to provide a buffer between commercial and residential
uses as well as limit the extent of paving.

The equestrian trail easement runs along the creek
and back property line up to Cañada Road and the bicycle and pedestrian trail easement along
Woodside Road from Cañada to Woody the fish. Trails were never built
on these easements but an informal trail developed crossing the open
space. This is the trail now used by
many kids on the way to school as well as by equestrians. It will be eliminated by the proposed parking
lot and no replacement for the bicycle/pedestrian use is proposed.

When our architectural clients want to undertake a whole
house remodel but only have the resources to do a part of the job, we encourage
them to make a long-term master-plan before tearing out the kitchen cabinets.

Now the Town is faced with a proposal to “tear out the
cabinets” with no idea of a larger goal.

The current application proposes expansion of the parking
lot into the hillside covered by the open space easement. For the plan to be implemented the Town would
have to abandon the easement which it owns over this land.

The expanded parking requires 10’ retaining walls. It maintains parking spaces blocking the existing
(unused) bicycle and pedestrian trail easement owned by the Town along Woodside
Road but it does not propose any pedestrian improvements.

Where is the humane place that we were promised by Measure A?

Expanding parking lots alone will never give us a people
friendly town center. What is missing is
the public realm, a place to walk safely, a place to meet friends.

More parking without pedestrian friendly places just means
more traffic.  More congestion.  More cars without improving pedestrian spaces means even fewer people will feel safe walking or riding to town center.

The Town needs to look at the big picture and plan for a
pedestrian friendly town center.  Not just for Cañada Corners but for the entire town center.  The Town should not abandon its open space easement to create more parking
before this planning is done. The
commercial property owners make liberal use of public spaces but leave only sad
fragments of public walkways and gathering spaces.

The number of parking spots required at Cañada Corners is based on uses permitted by the conditional use permit, including the permitted number of restaurant seats.  Not
only do the number of restaurant seats exceed what has been permitted but the lot is also used for grocery store parking.  Planning has to include looking at ways to provide safer, more convenient grocery store parking that can free up spaces at Cañada Corners.  There is plenty of existing paving in the town center, including 20 spaces the Town outlawed along the north side of Woodside Road between the Standard Station and Cañada Lane.  We need to enlist skilled planners to start a conversation about town center planning.

In the short run the Town can continue allowing much loved outdoor dining during the planning process by relaxing its parking standards and encouraging better management of the existing parking.

The Cañada Rd/Woodside Road intersection is a mess with
shoppers parking where they block the view of drivers and backing into the
intersection.

The solution will require looking at more than just one
property or just the roads.

Let’s make a plan first.  We can do better.

In 2013 the Town appointed a 30 member committee to look at Town Center Planning.  Many ideas were discussed and great progress was being made toward forming planning priorities.  A group which had not participated in the committee’s sessions misrepresented its work and stormed a Council meeting objecting to even thinking about planning.  The Council folded and abandoned the committee’s work.  It’s time to take it up again.  Here is a link to information about the committee’s work.

Demand that the Town engage in planning for a hospitable
town center before it abandons its open space.

Better yet, vote Steve for Town Council and I will see that
it gets done!

Save Rural Woodside has information about the proposal on their website:
http://www.saveruralwoodside.org/BullDoze.htm

Minutes of 1979 Planning Commission meeting.

Easement Documents

Town Center Page

10/4/2022

At a recent neighborhood candidates event Councilmember Brian Dombrowski stated that the HCD’s (California Department of Housing Community Development) verbal review of the Town’s draft housing element was positive.  He went on to say that the element is really just a place holder and the Council is working on a better plan.

The staff report to the Council contains a summary of the verbal review.  The summary starts on page 2, under HCD Comment Call:
https://www.woodsidetown.org/sites/default/files/fileattachments/town_council/meeting/33047/item_c_-…

HCD doesn’t believe that Woodside can up its ADU production and  has serious concerns about the practicality of using the sites selected by the Town, including legal restrictions and AFFH.  AFFH is the state’s way of saying affordable housing should be integrated into the community, not stuck on the edges.

Significantly the Town doesn’t think it will meet the January 31 deadline for completing the element but will need the 120 day grace period to get the analysis done.

After January 31 the Town will not have a housing element compliant with State requirements.  California’s Housing Accountability Act (HAA) provides a so-called builder’s remedy that allows developers of affordable housing projects to bypass the zoning code and general plan of cities that are out of compliance with the Housing Element Law.  The grace period does not apply here.

It is a shame that the Town wasn’t working on its better plan earlier, rather than counting on the mountain lions to bail us out, then presenting the hail-Mary Shawkowski proposal to the state.

Given the huge job of evaluating and updating the Housing Element and the (well deserved) retirement of Planning Director Jackie Young I can’t image a sane person wanting to be a  Council member!

ps:
At this same meeting Brian was asked why the Town removed the Hacienda Drive site for affordable housing but kept the Cañada Road site, even though the Hacienda site is far superior with regard to AFFH and the Cañada site is in the only Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone outside of the western hills <https://osfm.fire.ca.gov/media/5989/woodside.pdf>.  His response involved discussion of how the Town has control of affordability on Town owned sites, even though both the Cañada and Hacienda sites are both privately owned.  By the same owner no less!

Update 10/18/2022:
Here is the State’s letter rejecting the Town’s Housing Element.

The Woodside Town Council has members with legal, business and financial mindsets but would benefit from my experience as an architect and my deep interest in planning.

Our Town has a pattern of reacting to crises rather than thinking ahead. The current housing element is a good example of the Council taking a transactional approach rather than looking at what kind of future we want for the Town and making changes to support that vision.

I am used to listening to the needs and dreams of our clients, thinking about what could be, considering conflicts and limitations then bringing the vision into being.   We need a councilmember who can see what does not yet exist.

We need to plan how to accommodate the changes thrust upon us while preserving what we love about the Town.

We all complain about traffic in town but in reality we are the traffic.
Our daily decisions and long term planning decisions increase or diminish traffic.

We can cause more traffic by planning for housing away from workplaces and shopping or we can diminish it by making places for people to live within walking distance.

We can have more people walking or riding bikes to school or a town meeting by eliminating the conditions which make people fearful.

We can also provided more options for getting to transit.  When we go to San Francisco, Thalia and I often drive to Colma BART Station and BART into The City.  What if we could take the bus to the train?

It turns out that SamTrans runs bus service to Woodside every half hour during the day.  Who knew!  However the service uses I-280 rather than Cañada Road to go from Cañada College to Woodside Road.  We can talk with SamTrans and see how to modify this route and make it useful to those who live or work near Woodside Town Center.

Lets think about it.

I guess I’m a goody-two-shoes, but we should all obey the law, especially when seeking public office.

I am putting up a few campaign signs and will do so following the Town’s law regarding political signs.

All candidates received a copy of the ordinance containing this law when we took out nomination papers.  The law says signs should not exceed 4 square feet, should be on private property and not be more than 8 feet off the ground.  Reading this law I designed my signs to be installed on fences rather than free standing in the street right of way.

Here’s the law:

https://library.municode.com/ca/woodside/codes/municipal_code?nodeId=CD_ORD_TITXVLAUS_CH153ZO_153.50…

I appreciate the enthusiasm exhibited by the profusion of signs in the public right of way but the Town has a long tradition of discouraging signs.  If we want these signs we should change the law first.