Developer to Resubmit Condo Plan

Developers of the proposed Los Arboles Townhomes said Tuesday they will try again to win city approval.

Their decision to push an alternative comes after the Planning Commission rejected an earlier version of their office-residential complex.

Residents and planning commissioners said massive walls planned as part of the project would overwhelm village-like Montgomery Street.

They want feedback from city officials on how to make the project--23 condominiums planned on a little more than three acres--more compatible with city guidelines, said Lance Smigel, managing partner of Los Arboles Townhomes.

Earlier this month, the project was voted down 4-2 by the commission. Chairman Craig Brown was absent. The project was scheduled for an Aug. 22 hearing before the City Council, which could have overturned the commission’s decision.

Project architect Marc Whitman said the commission’s criticisms could be resolved and developers want to work with the city, rather than fight it.

“We’ve always felt we’ve been in line with what they wanted,” Whitman said.

Whitman said he hopes to present the revised plans to the Planning Commission in September.

City plans for the area call for condominiums facing the street, built over offices. The development would allow people to work at home, get out of their cars and walk around town. The condominiums partially meet that requirement, but all face inward, with stucco walls that critics say create the appearance of a fortress.

The commission generally liked the Mediterranean architecture but said the condo units were too large, the project too big for the site and too many trees would have to be removed.

Several commissioners also wanted the project to look less imposing from the rear, where it can be seen from Libbey Park.

Whitman said he expects to rearrange the project to give it a more open feel and is considering dozens of options to make it more compatible with the neighborhood.

The vacant land once was home to 29 “Evergreen” cottages, built in the 1940s to house railroad workers. By the early 1990s, the buildings had become home to drug dealers and transients.

Smigel bought the cottages and adjacent land and razed the cottages at the city’s request.