The Menlo Country Club, a private golf course that sits along Woodside Road across from Woodside High School, may be thought of as venerable, given its founding in 1901. If its long presence confers any clout, that will be tested this week.
The club has asked the Woodside Planning Commission to review a decision by Planning and Building Director Jackie Young that denied a change of zoning, thereby significantly complicating expansion plans, if any, that the club may have.
The commission meets at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 18, in Independence Hall at the corner of Woodside and Whiskey Hill roads.
In its appeal, the club is facing several overlapping obstacles:
• Since the club’s existence preceded the town’s 1956 incorporation, it was allowed to continue operating but is considered “a non-conforming use” under current zoning laws. That label precludes expansion, Ms. Young said in an Oct. 16 letter to Mark B. Pitchford, chair of the club’s Golf & Greens Committee.
Golf courses are permitted on land zoned Community Commercial, but that category also allows “intensive commercial land uses” such as malls, a possible concern for the club’s residential neighbors, Ms. Young said in a staff report.
• In discussing topographic conditions with the club’s chief engineer, a cursory review by town staff of an aerial photograph of club grounds raised a question. The photo appears to show an average slope that would prohibit development of more than 67.5 percent of the site, a number the club has probably already exceeded, Ms. Young said.
• Is it a “golf course” or a “private noncommercial club”? Ms. Young has settled on the former, but the club prefers the latter, in that it would no longer be non-conforming, Ms. Young said.
The San Mateo County Assessor’s Office calls it a golf course, Ms. Young noted, and golf is the land’s primary use. The ordinance does not define it, and judicial precedent recommends the plain meaning of words to “avoid an absurd result.” Her report includes three dictionary definitions of golf course.
In an Oct. 22 letter, club President Harry G. Whelan said the club will show that “golf course” is an inappropriate term.
The club did not respond to a request for an interview.
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