Preserve SRC Campus

(Web page archive, the Preserve SRC website is no longer maintained)

Welcome to the Preserve SRC Campus web site
(SRC stands for the Saratoga Retirement Community)

Preserve SRC Campus is an information organization with the goal:

To preserve the SRC campus, our home, as a rural and open space campus and to find a better way for the long term future of SRC than packing the campus with new buildings and underground garages.

City Council approves the SRC Expansion Proposal

We are deeply disappointed that the City Council approved the SRC Expansion Proposal at its meeting on June 5th. It seems that considerations of the State-imposed mandate that the City increase its housing capacity, and the fears of losing control if the City fails, weighed more heavily on the Councilors than the destruction of the quality of life for three hundred Saratoga citizens in their retirement and the desecration of the SRC Campus with loss of open space and many mature and protected trees.

The hard work in campaigning against the proposal by most of the residents, supported by other Saratoga citizens, has been outstanding. We thank you all.

Planning Commission Endorses PRS Proposal for SRC Expansion

At it meeting on May 8th, the Planning Commission spent three and a half hours on presentations and discussions concerning the PRS proposal for the expansion of SRC, to which the vast majority of SRC Independent Living residents object. At the end of the meeting the Planning Commission City Staff Officer ruled that motions that would "cherry pick" from among the various buildings are not permissible, and that the Commission would have to have an up-or-down vote on the entire proposal (Alternative 4). This ruled our further consideration our compromise proposal, as well as other compromise possibiities that were being discussed. The Commission voted (with obvious great difficulty from several members of the Commission) to forward the Master Plan proposal to the City for approval. There was about an hour of oral presentations, nearly all against the PRS proposal. Here is a recording of the oral submissions from members of the Preserve SRC Campus Interest Group. Here is a recording of the complete meeting.

Letter to the Odd Fellows Home of California Board of Directors

Bob Berglund, President of the SRC Residents' Council, sent this letter to the Odd Fellows Home of California Board of Directors on December 7th, 2023. The letter points out that 87% of the Independent Living Residents oppose the PRS proposed expansion, and describes the Single Building compromise proposal. (i.e Building C in the PRS proposal). See below for further details of the Single Building proposal.

Courage in Leadership Award

Congratulations to Preserve Coordinator Tsing Bardin on being awarded the City of Saratoga's 2023 Courage in Leadership Award. The photo shows Tsing and other Preserve SRC Campus supporters and was taken at the award ceremony held on September 9th, 2023.

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.

The group was formed in response to an Expansion Plan submitted to the City of Saratoga by Pacific Retirement Services (PRS), who manage the Saratoga Retirement Community for the Odd Fellows Home of California.

When the expansion proposal was first announced, a number of residents developed an Alternate Proposal which they submitted to Saratoga City for consideration as part of the Environmental Impact Review (EIR).

Now that the Draft EIR has been published and extensively commented on, these residents have updated and simplified their proposal (the Updated Alternative Proposal). Do you support the Alternate Proposals? If so, then ((please click or tap here to send us an email and let us know and - email no longer available)) please send your comments to the City. Thank you.

Update, December 10th 2021: The City held a Community Meeting on November 16th 2021 and the EIR Public Scoping Meeting on December 9th 2021. Videos of both meetings are on the City Comment tab.

The Saratoga Falcon published an article on December 3rd 2021 entitled Senior and local residents advocate for an alternative to the proposed construction at the Saratoga Retirement Community.

What is the PRS Proposal?

PRS are proposing to add 52 Independent Living apartments in three buildings, as shown in the following campus map:

PRS Proposal

They are also proposing to add a new meeting room and an extension to the existing fitness center. The three residential buildings would all have underground parking. The proposal also includes a new emergency access to the campus from Chester Road (opposite McLaren Lane, not shown on the above map).

What are our concerns?

Our concerns are that

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,

the red circle and diagonal bar shows proposed buildings that we feel destroy the heart of the campus, and
the yellow circle and diagonal bar 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:

Updated AlternateProposal

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:

Alt

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 - email link no longer available)) please send your comments to the City. Thank you.

Return to the SRC Neighborhood Home Page.

Preserve SRC Campus is an informal organization whose members are residents in the Saratoga Retirement Community

This page last updated on June 7th 2024. (Page no longer maintained)