Pico pushes for Kottinger Hills housing plan Pico pushes for Kottinger Hills housing plan (February 11, 2005)

Ex-mayor strikes out again to mend development fences
by Jeb Bing

Former mayor and slow-growth advocate Tom Pico stunned a packed public hearing before the Pleasanton City Council and Planning Commission on Tuesday by announcing that he had switched sides and is now working for a developer intent on building 98 luxury homes in the hills above Kottinger Ranch.

Pico acknowledged that he had led the opposition to a similar project in 1991, which had called for fewer homes but also an 18-hole golf course. That proposal was eventually defeated in a referendum Pico supported.

"This is not the previous project; it's a significantly different project," Pico said. "I'm extremely optimistic that as we go through this process and the meetings ahead that we are going to be able to come up with solutions that hopefully will allow the community to accept this project."

Pico was one of 20 speakers who addressed the workshop meeting of the council and Planning Commission that debated how to structure an Environmental Impact Report. The EIR will be prepared by the owners of the 562-acre site that extends from the east end of Hearst Drive over the hills toward Ruby Hill. It is owned by Jennifer, Frederic and Kevin Lin who, along with their partner and Pleasanton investor James Tong, want to build 98 homes on large lots. The Lin family would preserve 495 acres of the site for public trails and open space if their project is approved.

Until recently, many in the Kottinger Hills and Vintage Hills communities thought the Lin family's development plans were effectively killed by the vote against it in the 1991 referendum. But it turned out that only the golf course was axed, and the property continued to be zoned for houses. That was confirmed in the 1996 General Plan that allowed at least one home to every 5 acres, the minimum residential density allowed in Pleasanton.

Planning officials have said the only way Pleasanton could block a housing development in the Kottinger Hills would be to buy the land, a multi-million-dollar proposition the city could probably not afford nor would voters approve.

At Tuesday's meeting, Hosterman raised the question directly with the Lin family's representative, Attorney Martin Inderbitzen.

"If in the end, the EIR results in no project being approved, how much money is the Lin family looking to make off the property?" Hosterman asked. "Can you put a finger on the dollar amount so that if in the future we decide we want to buy it we'll know what to expect?"

Inderbitzen said that was not an appropriate question for a hearing on what should be included in an EIR.

"If it comes to a decision that there will be no project, then the Lins will wait and propose another one," he said. "They've been landowners for over 20 years. They built Kottinger Ranch and they have long planned this one, and they believe they are entitled to move forward based on existing rules.

"But if it ever comes to pass that nothing can ever be approved, then we can have your discussion," he told Hosterman.

Most of the 80 residents at the workshop meeting, like most on the Planning Commission and council, opposed the Lin development. Councilman Matt Sullivan said worsening traffic conditions since the first development was considered in 1991 and the General Plan update was approved in 1996 make this new housing plan unsuitable. Like others, he cited the city's need to provide more affordable housing units before Pleasanton reaches its buildout cap of 29,000 units and said 98 more estate homes won't address that shortfall.

"Frankly, I'd like to see a project that has five or 10 homes and the rest of the property is in some kind of public preserve," Sullivan said.

Planning Commissioner Anne Fox said that if the development goes through, she would favor splitting the housing site in two as has been done in Ponderosa Home's Ironwood subdivision now under construction. In Ironwood, half the homes have access to Mohr Avenue and other half to Valley Avenue, but no street is cut through the development.

"I'd like to see the same plan for this (Kottinger Hills) development, with half the homes having access to Hearst Drive and the others to Vineyard on the other side," she said.

In fact, it was that compromise to block any cut-through traffic in the Ponderosa housing plan and other concessions that helped Tom Pico resolve heated differences between the developer and homeowners in the adjacent Mohr-Martin neighborhood. Once arch enemies in public debates, the two sides came together largely because of Pico's persistent and effective consultations. In the end, neighbors stood before the council and praised Ponderosa for its final housing plan that helped their community.

Pico said it is in this same spirit of seeking cooperation that he agreed to sign on as a consultant to the Lin family.

"I want to make sure that the Environmental Impact Report addresses all of the positives and the negatives that affect all of Pleasanton, not just the immediate neighborhoods," Pico said. "I want to find ways to make this project more acceptable, to mitigate any impacts it might have and to turn the controversy we see here into support."

Hosterman, noting that EIR results should be known within 90 days, said there would be more hearings on the Lin family development plans after that.

"I think we'll be seeing a lot more of you," she told Pico.

E-mail a friend a link to this story.