Community Corner
Letter to the Editor: Los Gatos Theater Needs to Provide More Parking
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You learn in political science class that local councils must control their staff. Ours certainly needs oversight.
Leaving out pertinent information from your packets. Interpreting zoning inconsistently, therefore undermining our districts. And not being forthright. The low manufacturing district on University Avenue is now littered with retail causing rents to rise and low manufacturing to move. Where will we have our cars serviced? Campbell!
The same scenario takes place in the [Los Gatos] central business district, where 22 percent of the first block of Santa Cruz Avenue is alcohol-oriented. Conditional-use permits are often not required for professional uses there. This, too, increases rents and undermines the district.
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The new [Los Gatos] Theater CUP was approved with questionable information supplied by staff. Parking was not fully explored and left unclear.
Town staff was asked if the application meets the parking requirements. Staff's answer was yes. And by playing a game with smoke and mirrors, they factored in less chairs downstairs and moving the rest upstairs, which is nonsense.
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The apartment space and the unusable attic space, without raising the roof, were never part of the parking district. Residential was never assessed into the district and neither was unusable attic space. Therefore, these are classified as new spaces and were never part of the parking district and the cure is simple. Provide parking.
Some property owners adjusted upward their assessment obligation by bringing like spaces into compliance. The theater did not do this.
The Opera House and upstairs over Le Boulanger, when intensifying their upstairs, were made to provide real parking spaces and even valet service. Numerous other properties were obligated to buy into the parking district for ghost spaces. The theater is not being asked to do this. Why? Is this fair to those who follow the rules?
I'm giving town staff this new information in hopes that they will revisit this application and approve it the right way. We can not allow upstairs CUPs without providing parking and paying for it.
