Council authorized staff to pursue Caltrans inquiry talks; sewer study identified as housing-element priority

Woodside — During a brief closed-session update, the town reported the council authorized staff to begin initial exploratory information-gathering discussions in response to a Caltrans inquiry about potential sale of state-owned property identified on the closed-session agenda.

"In closed session this evening, the town council authorized staff to engage in initial exploratory information-gathering discussions in response to Caltrans inquiry," Jean said when reporting out to the council. No further details about the parcel or next steps were disclosed at the meeting beyond the authorization to begin information gathering.

In the town-manager portion of the meeting, staff outlined several priority projects and organizational steps tied to the housing element. The manager said the sewer-capacity study is the critical dependency that must be completed before other housing-element actions can proceed. "The sewer study is needing to get completed before anything else truly can take off," the manager said. The manager added that staff hopes to return to council within about 90 days with prioritized housing-element deliverables and that the annual progress report to HCD is due April 1.

What’s next: staff will pursue the authorized exploratory discussions with Caltrans and continue the sewer-capacity study; council will receive the town’s annual HCD progress report in March before submittal to HCD.