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Latest news - Planning Commission Study Session

The City has announced a Planning Commission Study Session, which will be held on September 27th at 7:30pm in the Civic Theater, 13777 Fruitvale Avenue, Saratoga. This meeting provides the opportunity for residents to express their opinions directly to members of the Planning Commission. We will be taking the opportunity to promote our Updated Alternate Proposal. We strongly encourage all residents who are affected by the proposed expansion or who have an opinion to attend.

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Group overview

Members of the group act as individuals. The group, including this web site, is a way of disseminating information upon which individuals may act if they so choose.

What is the PRS Proposal?

What are our concerns?

• The locations of the three residential buildings destroy all the existing open spaces on the campus, taking away the bucolic charm of SRC, removing the outdoor areas for residents' recreation and relaxation, and generally impacting the residents' quality of life.
• The PRS proposal requires the removal 60 mature and protected trees, significantly impacting the semi-rural nature of the campus (see the arborist's report and related photographs at the bottom of the City submissions tab.
  
• Placing a building on Odd Fellows Drive in front of the  manor destroys the view of this imposing historic listed building.
• The construction would cause campus-wide turmoil.
  

Our concerns are summarized in the following marked-up campus map:

In this chart,

shows proposed buildings that we feel destroy the heart of the campus, and
shows a building that is too large and impacts nearby trees

The Updated PRS Proposal

PRS have submitted an update as an alternative to be considered during the EIR review. Their alternative responds to criticisms that Building B destroys the view of the historic manor. So in this proposal, they no longer include Building B and they remove two cottages, replacing them by a new Building D on the entrance car park and the site of the first two cottages on West Cottages Drive, as shown on this plan:

The Updated Alternate Proposal

The updated Alternative Proposal (September 2023) only adds one building to the campus, in a location which has minimal impact on the overall campus ambience and environment. The updated proposal is illustrated in the following campus map, which also shows the buildings in the PRS proposal which we do not wish to see constructed:

The key features of the updated proposal are:

• It provides a strictly limited expansion plan for our campus, supporting at least 20 new apartments;
  
• It preserves the view of the historical building – the Manor;
• It minimizes the the number of tress that have to be removed and limits them to younger, less-mature, trees;
• It preserves the outdoor green space and recreational area, including the Odd Fellows Park;
• It minimizes construction disruption and health hazards to senior residents’ lives [avg. age 85] during construction years;
• We ask for a solid schedule that can be monitored for the renovation of the existing Skilled Nursing Facility.

The Initial Alternate Proposal (June 2021)

A number of residents  developed an alternate proposal and submitted it to Saratoga City for consideration as part of the Environmental Impact Review. This proposal provides the same number of apartments, but places them at the edge of the campus. It also includes a new, state-of-the-art skilled nursing facility. Our proposal is illustrated in the following campus map:

The key features of the initial proposal are to

• Re-purpose  building C as a Skilled Nursing Facility (Building C’)
• Replace the existing health center by a new apartment block (building D)

We retain the Fitness Center extension and new emergency access from the PRS proposal unchanged.

The advantages of our proposal over the PRS proposal include:

• The construction of a single residential block, which saves costs and is less disruptive than building three residential blocks.
• The provision of a Skilled Nursing Facility adjacent to a new proposed emergency access from Chester Road, facilitating emergency evacuation from the campus.
  
• The re-use of the existing Health Center footprint for the new residential block, which enables re-use of existing services and simplifies permitting.
• Construction located away from the center of campus, thus causing less disruption.

Our proposal, though developed by just a few residents, has rapidly received wide support from among the SRC residents. Of the 88% of the Independent Living Residents responding to a questionnaire sent from the Residents’ Council at the end of 2021, 76% oppose PRS plan and, in response to a separate question, 76 % support our proposal. See here for a full report of the questionnaire results.

Do you support the Alternate Proposals? If so, then please click or tap here to send us an email and let us know and please send your comments to the City. Thank you.