Central Middle School Hosts Pizza Bingo Night: February 15

Free Pizza.

Pizza and Bingo Family Night is coming February 15th from 6:00 – 7:30 p.m. in Mustang Hall at Central Middle School in San Carlos. Come enjoy a pizza dinner & have some family fun playing BINGO!  This is a community event for NO CHARGE if you RSVP in advance.   Dinner includes Nino’s pizza, salad, dessert and a drink.

Have some fun and get to know your Central Middle School Community! Prizes for all Bingo winners, including iTunes cards, Starbucks cards, Tutti Frutti cards, and more!

To RSVP, please email Kelly Rubingh at  by February 13 with how many people in your family are attending so they know how much food to prepare. If there is enough pizza, you can pay at the door if you don’t RSVP, or just come for Bingo fun.
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The Trees of San Carlos: What You Can and Can’t Do With Them.

Not All Trees Are Created Equal.

Trees are a big part of the landscape and the personality of San Carlos.  There’s a whole neighborhood and blog named after one particular species of oak tree, but for some reason that name seems to escape me at the moment…  Anyhow, there has even been a big discussion about removing 23 of the eucalyptus trees on the perimeter of Burton Park because of the declining health of the trees, and the potential safety hazard that they pose.  It’s hard to imagine how different Burton Park will look when those trees are gone!

So it’s no surprise that one of the most frequent questions I hear from prospective home buyers actually has nothing to do with the house itself.  It’s often about the trees that are on the property that they’re interested in.  Can the trees be removed?  Or, when is a permit required to remove them?

Size Matters, But…

San Carlos has always had pretty stringent controls in place to regulate the removal of trees, even on private properties.   And for good reason — trees are a big part of what makes this town so beautiful, so the preservation of them is of utmost importance.  I was always under the impression that the size of the tree was the primary factor in determining whether a permit is required to remove a healthy tree from a property (obviously, different rules apply to a diseased or dead tree.)   It turns out that this is not necessarily the case.

When I researched this topic in the City of San Carlos Municipal Code, the guideline wasn’t spelled out very clearly.   So I posed the question to the great folks in the Planning Department at the City of San Carlos, and I’m glad that I did – because they are in the process of updating the rules and regulations of tree removal in San Carlos.   And while size certainly matters, it’s not the sole factor in determining whether a tree can be removed from your property or not — it’s far more involved than that.

According to Gavin Moynahan, Assistant Planner for the City of San Carlos, here are the current rules for the removal of trees in San Carlos:

I.  The following trees shall not be classified as protected trees regardless of size.  No permit is required for removal of trees on the following list:

• Bailey, Green or Black Acacia: a. baileyana, a. decurrens or a. melanoxylon
• Tree of Heaven: Ailanthus altissima
• Fruit trees of any kind
• Monterey Pine: Pinus radiate
• Eucalyptus: Eucalyptus globulus (unless a founder tree or group of trees)

II.  The following list of indigenous Heritage trees require a permit for removal.  Please note that there are specific sizes that relate to the various species.

• Aesculus californica (buckeye) with a single stem or multiple stems touching each other at 48 inches above natural grade and measuring 30 inches in circumference.
• Arbutus menziesii (madrone) with a single stem or multiple stems touching each other at 48 inches above natural grade and measuring 30 inches in circumference.
• Quercus agrifolia (coast live oak) of more than 30 inches in circumference.
• Quercus lobata (valley oak) of more than 30 inches in circumference.
• Quercus douglasii (blue oak) of more than 24 inches in circumference.
• Quercus wislizenii (interior live oak) of more than 24 inches in circumference.
• Sequoia sempervirens (redwood) of more than 72 inches in circumference.
• Umbellularia californica (California bay laurel) with a single stem or multiple stems touching each other at 48” above natural grade and measuring 30 inches in circumference.
• Community of trees;
• Founders tree: Any tree known to have been planted prior to the City’s 1925 incorporation.
• Tree so designated by the City Council, based upon findings that the particular tree is unique and of importance to the public due to its unusual age, appearance, location or other factors.

III.  The following trees require permits based on their size and location.  Permits are required for trees that measure greater than 36” in circumference measured 48” from grade and fit the following two categories:

• Public Tree. Any tree located within any street median, City park or other parcel of publicly owned property, including any tree located in a City maintained park strip on Laurel Street, and San Carlos Avenue (1100 and 1200 blocks only).
• Significant Tree. Any tree that is 36 inches in circumference (or more), (which is approximately 11.5 inches in diameter), outside of bark, measured at 48 inches above natural grade.

Tree removal permits subject to arborist review generally take 10 business days to complete.  Please ensure that all relevant information is included on the application prior to submittal.

Questions?

First, a point of clarification is in order.  Sections I and III may seem contradictory at first glance — On one hand, there are a group of trees that don’t require a permit for removal, regardless of their size (Section I).   But in Section III under “Significant Tree”, the regulations seem to contradict Section I — For example,  if you had Monterey Pine in your yard with a circumference greater than 36″, would you need a permit to remove it?   The answer is that the trees outlined in Section I are exempt from any of the permit requirements.  So the correct answer is that no permit is required to remove this tree.

A big thanks to both Chris Valley and Gavin Moynahan for their contribution to this post.  If you have any further questions about the tree ordinance in San Carlos, your best bet is to shoot Gavin an email with your question.
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The San Carlos Real Estate Week in Review: 2-4-12.

San Carlos Real Estate Summary.

The inventory of single-family residences for sale in San Carlos dropped to its lowest level in a long time when we finished last week with only 24 homes on the market.   Having a lean inventory is not that uncommon for early in the year, but even this level is about 20% lower than average for this time of year.     This is certainly a source of frustration for many buyers who are patiently waiting for more homes to choose from.

Buying activity has been one consistent factor that is keeping inventory levels low.  This past week 7 homes went under contract, which means nearly a quarter of the inventory from the prior week (30) was consumed in just one week!  Obviously, there’s still some pent-up demand for homes in San Carlos.

By The Numbers.

Below is a high-level snapshot of the market performance for single-family residences in San Carlos. This data is for the week ending 2-4-2012:

>>> Click Here to Read the Full Post
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San Carlos Announces State of the City Address for 2012.

February 23, 2012

The City of San Carlos and the San Carlos Chamber of Commerce have announced the date and time for this year’s edition of the Mayor’s State of the City Address and Reception.    On Thursday, February 23, Mayor Andy Klein will present “What’s Next“, his first State of the City presentation as the Mayor of San Carlos.

The event starts at 5:30 PM at the Hiller Aviation Museum, with the Mayor’s presentation slated between 6:15 – 6:45.  Last year, the format of the State of the City address was changed to allow local San Carlos businesses an opportunity to showcase their firms during a reception prior to the event.  This year’s event will continue that tradition.

Here are the complete details of this year’s event:

Thursday, February 23, 2012
at Hiller Aviation Museum
601 Skyway Road, San Carlos

5:30 pm to 7:30 pm
6:15 pm to 6:45 pm – Mayor’s Presentation

Refreshments and Hors d’oeuvres wiill be served.

$5 Per Person, Advance Registration required by February 17th.
$10 at the door

Online Registration Form –> 2012 State of the City Address & Reception

Sponsored by PG&E and the Hiller Aviation Museum.  Proceeds Benefit the
Chamber of Commerce Scholarship Fund

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The San Carlos Real Estate Week in Review: 1-28-12.

San Carlos Real Estate Summary.

It’s kind of rare to have a week where not a single home closes escrow in the entire city.  But if that’s going to happen, it will usually be in January, late summer, or sometime in December.  And it looks like this was just that kind of week, because nothing closed!  Buyers stayed active however, taking 4 of the available homes off the market.   And the 5 new listings that made their debut this week pushed the inventory back up to 30 homes — which is still only about 50% (or less) of what you would expect to see at the peak of a normal spring market.

On the note of inventory, I’ll have a specific post later this week about the inventory outlook for San Carlos in 2012. In the meantime, here are the numbers for this past week…

By The Numbers.

Below is a high-level snapshot of the market performance for single-family residences in San Carlos. This data is for the week ending 1-28-2012:

>>> Click Here to Read the Full Post
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Is San Carlos Going to the Dogs?

It’s Good to be a Dog.

I don’t think there’s an official statistic on this anywhere, but it would probably be a safe bet that the venerable canine is the most common household pet in the City of Good Living — only the house cat may give it a run for its money.  But there’s no doubt that San Carlos residents love their dogs.  Whether they’re cruising downtown on Laurel Street,  or chasing balls at Burton Park, dogs are definitely part of the fabric of San Carlos.

Part of the challenge of owning a dog is finding a suitable place to exercise them.   Dogs love to run, and the bigger the dog is the more room they need to stretch their legs.   But with open space and parks being such a preciously guarded commodity in San Carlos, dog owners didn’t have many options to exercise their dogs off leash within city limits — the only exception being the Heater Dog Park, which is a small slice of land next to Heather School.  All other parks have explicit instructions which mandate that all dogs must remain leashed.

To get around the lack of available space, some dog owners let their dogs run freely at some of the bigger parks in San Carlos.  It has been a pretty common site for years to see a half dozen dogs running blissfully across the Burton Park field in the morning hours.  Same goes with Crestview, Heather, Highlands, and Stadium fields.   And unless there was an incident with the dogs,  enforcement of the leash laws was pretty much non-existent.    The coexistence seemed to be working.

But according to Bonnie Eslinger’s article in the Daily News, all of that changed recently when Sheriff’s deputies began writing citations to owners of off-leash dogs –this came in response to some complaints they received from residents who objected to the frolicking canines at Burton.

The Experiment.

The backlash from dog owners and subsequent meetings with the Park and Rec Department and the Mayor of San Carlos resulted in a temporary agreement to open some of the parks to off-leash dogs during limited hours.   For the month of January, dogs owners have been allowed to officially cut them loose at Burton and Highlands Parks between the hours of 8AM and noon, and then again between 4PM and 8PM.     The extended hours work because the fields aren’t used this time of year for organized sports.

According to the Daily News Article, the Park and Rec Commission was tasked last night to consider possible options to give the dogs extra room to run, one of which is to make the temporary experiment at Burton and Highlands a permanent one.

Etiquette is Key.

Personally, I think off-leash dogs and people can and should coexist at our parks.  But there are conditions related to etiquette and safety that need to be addressed before such an arrangement should become permanent.  The first is cleanliness.    I volunteer during the fall as a referee for San Carlos AYSO, and I can tell you that there isn’t a weekend that goes by where we don’t have to scour the field and remove several canine “land mines” from the field before the field is suitable for use.  And that’s if we’re lucky enough to find them before somebody steps in them.   That simply shouldn’t happen.

The second concern with the dogs themselves.   Some dogs simply shouldn’t be allowed off leash because they’re too aggressive toward other dogs and worst case, people.  I’ve heard numerous stories about dog fights and other aggressive behavior with off-leash dogs that make this a very legitimate concern.

The website San Carlos Dogs is a good resource for people who are interested in finding out more about the off-leash rules, the discussions with the Park and Rec Commission, and great tips on dog etiquette at the park.

But at the end of the day, the parks are for everyone in San Carlos — and there needs to be solution that’s workable for both residents AND dog lovers in San Carlos.    Probably the most favorable solution with dog owners is to make the temporary off-leash hours at Burton and Highlands permanent.  What do you think about that?   Register your vote in the poll at the top of the site.
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The San Carlos Real Estate Week in Review: 1-21-12.

San Carlos Real Estate Summary.

Buyers continued to wait patiently this past week for more homes to hit the market.  But with only three new listings to consider, and six homes getting into contract, the inventory of single-family homes for sale in San Carlos once again dropped below the 30 mark.  This inventory level is very typical for January, but such a strong pent-up demand this early in the year is anything but typical.   This bodes well for a healthy spring market… when it eventually gets here.

By The Numbers.

Below is a high-level snapshot of the market performance for single-family residences in San Carlos. This data is for the week ending 1-21-2012:

>>> Click Here to Read the Full Post
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Have the blog delivered to you! Subscribe to the White Oaks Blog for free by clicking here. And while you’re at it, be sure to follow the White Oaks Blog on Facebook at https://Facebook.com/WhiteOaksBlog , and on Twitter @WhiteOaksBlog.
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Face Time With the Mayor of San Carlos.

Office Hours.

Do you have something that you’d like to discuss with the Mayor of San Carlos?  Don’t think an email exchange is the appropriate vehicle to get your point across?  Well, you’ll soon have the opportunity to get some fact time with the Mayor, and you don’t have to wait for a City Council meeting.    The City of San Carlos announced today that Mayor Andy Klein will be holding Mayor’s Office Hours this year to meet with residents to discuss what is on their mind about all things San Carlos. The initial set of office hours will be held on the following days:

• Saturday, January 21st from 12 Noon to 3 pm, and
• Monday, January 30th from 4:30 pm to 7:30 pm.

No appointment is needed to meet with the Mayor.   The Mayor’s Office Hours will be held at the Mayor’s Office at City Hall, 600 Elm Street, 1st Floor. The Mayor’s Office is located just down the hall from the Police Department entrance of City Hall, nearest the San Carlos Library.

So drop by and tell the Mayor how you think things are going in San Carlos.
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