now the speeding trucks will return to Mountain Home Road.....

Buying a 3-year-old, 7400-square-foot house for $117 million and then drastically remodeling it to add even more space. Only in Woodside.

If the Almanac article accurately describes what transpired at last night's Woodside Town Council meeting, I really can't believe the Council members fell for the applicant's story. Each time the applicant has appeared before a Town body to discuss their failure to abide by project conditions they originally embraced, they've come up with a different reason for why they intentionally (after being explicitly and repeatedly warned not to) ignored those conditions. The first-floor-was-connected-to-the-basement justification, to my knowledge, has never been offered before. If that excuse hadn't worked last night, I wonder what they would have tried next... Furthermore, the massive 'rainwater' cistern has ALWAYS been part of their project--so the TC's citing it as a new condition for lifting the stop-work order is rather hypocritical. Speaking as a Town resident, I'm very disappointed in our Council's actions.

Representatives for the applicant described the first-floor-and-basement-ceiling issue in testimony before the Planning Commission at its July 31 meeting.

As for the cistern, staff noted last night that there is indeed an existing cistern on the property. Another cistern may be a possibility, but it may not survive review by the planning director. It was mentioned in the staff report as an example of a sustainability related element, not as something that had to be done.

Remember folks, money talks. And big money talks really LOUD.

Correction; the large cistern may be in the plans, not existing. In any case, the idea of the cistern per se as a sustainable element was noted by someone at the council meeting as an adjunct to another cistern already conceived of for this project.