City Council Notes

The following list is a summary of decisions made by the Scotts Valley City Council at its Feb. 2 meeting. For more information: www.scottsvalley.org.
Council OKs hiring of Town Center consultant
In a unanimous vote, the City Council voted to authorize spending as much as $25,000 in city redevelopment money to hire an economic consultant to analyze the Pratt Co.’s Town Center proposal. The dollar amount will be matched by Pratt.
City declares opposition to governor’s budget
All five members of the Scotts Valley City Council voted to officially voice their displeasure with Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget proposal that would eliminate redevelopment agencies statewide. They agreed to add their names to a statewide joint letter of protest by the League of California Cities.
Councilman Randy Johnson pointed to the nearly completed library as an example of a project benefiting the city that would have been impossible without redevelopment money.
Council allows delay for townhouse design review
The council uniformly passed a motion to grant Brooks Properties a one-time, one-year extension for the design review for 46 townhouses it plans to build as part of the Town Center.
The extension request was submitted in November in anticipation of the Jan. 7 expiration of the original two-year time frame for design review.
The homes will stand on 2.43 acres on Blue Bonnet Lane, behind the parking lot at the Cavallaro Transit Center.
Plans for construction of the townhouses, initially approved in 2009, remain the same.
Change to duplexes approved for Lundy Lane development
Plans have changed since the City Council gave its approval in 2008 to the Pinnacle View Planned Development to be built at the end of Lundy Lane.
Since then, land owner John Kontoudakis has revised his plan to make the proposed buildings conform to the contours of the existing land topography, reducing the need for major grading work and both the number and the height of retaining walls on the property.
The revised plan replaces the original proposal for 20 single-family homes — 12 houses and eight townhouses — with 10 multifamily duplexes, coupled with a slight reduction in parking spaces.
On Feb. 2, the City Council approved the amended plan. Johnson called the change in plans to conform to the terrain “a reasonable type of use for this kind of land.”