Sunol gets a "downtown" with limits

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Jul 9, 2008 | by Sam Sutton

SUNOL -- The Alameda County board of supervisors has agreed to redesignate 24 acres of Sunol as a downtown area.

The revision to the 1994 plan for eastern Alameda County may include within a few weeks further action to rezone the unincorporated community just off the junction of I-680 and Niles Canyon Road.

The original plan classified Sunol's downtown as a "water management area."

Many Sunol residents believe their "downtown" was inadvertently included in the water area because of its proximity to San Francisco Public Utility Commission watershed lands, according to a county memo.

Sunol residents have struggled for years to get their downtown redesignated and rezoned.

"We have been working with the county really aggressively since 2003," said former Sunol Citizens Advisory Committee Chairman Irv Tiessen. "Because of our designation, it is extremely difficult to do renovations to our property."

Supervisor Gail Steele said negotiations involving the Sunol Citizens Advisory Board, the Alameda County Community Development Agency, the county's Planning Commission and the Sierra Club were painstakingly slow.

The approved plan was a compromise that worried the Sierra Club, she said.

The club had sought three additions to the plan, but only one made it into the approved version, assistant planning director Liz McElligott said.

That addition was a limit permitting no more than 10 percent of a parcel to be used for commercial purposes. Sunol residents have historically opposed commercial expansion.

"That's why it has taken so long," Dick Schneider of the Sierra Club said. "We want to make sure this redesignation doesn't have unintended consequences."

The county Planning Commission will have to reconsider a proposal to permit existing violations of the 10 percent limit. This would allow buildings to be rebuilt in the case of a disaster. Several downtown buildings would exceed the allotted ratio.

Another proposed clause would limit the housing development to one unit on parcels of less than 40,000 square feet. Parcels exceeding 40,000 square feet could have as many as five units.

There is concern that consolidation of parcels could lead to high- density development. To prevent that, the Sierra Club asked the county to backdate the zoning change to include Measure D, which voters approved in 2000. It limited development in eastern Alameda County.

"I think they're very suspicious of anything that could breach Measure D," Tiessen said.

Although Sunol's planning designation and zoning may change, it is unlikely that the town itself will change much in the near future.

"Nobody in Sunol wants to change Sunol," Steele said.

A local leader said the changes did not indicate movement toward cityhood.

"We don't have enough residents to support a city government," said Dan Reasor, chairman of the Sunol Citizens Advisory Board. "This is mostly so the residents of downtown can (exercise) their rights as property owners."