Los Gatos could soon see a new, permanent public restroom near Town Plaza Park.
Town staff presented a list of potential locations for the restroom at a May council meeting. At a meeting on Tuesday, the council unanimously endorsed locating the facility at the northwest corner of Town Plaza Park, replacing an existing temporary restroom.
The vote paves the way for the permanent restroom to become a capital project and for town staff to continue working on its design.
“My youngest daughter is 24, and I just remember all of the time with little kids being downtown and the only option to find a restroom was to pop into a store or a coffee shop,” councilmember Maria Ristow said at Tuesday’s meeting. “And one, that just feels so unfriendly to our visitors, and No. 2, we do know our two coffee shops which have older plumbing are going to be very grateful for this, because there are, in the summertime, literally over a hundred people using each one for a restroom.”
A feasibility study for the permanent restroom cost the town $25,000, and officials expect the cost of designing and acquiring the appropriate permits for the project to be roughly $100,000, according to a staff report. Construction costs could reach roughly $500,000, and the town would likely incur additional costs to manage the structure and its cleaning.
The council’s vote did leave the door open for other possible locations.
Vice Mayor Matthew Hudes, whose motion the council approved, included a suggestion for staff to consider an automatic public toilet, which is more “self-contained” and would take up less space. He said such a toilet could be placed in the parking lot on West Main Street across from Town Plaza Park.
Ristow voted in favor of the motion, but she questioned located a public toilet in a parking lot.
“I really think that having a public restroom on a median between cars moving and in a parking lot is about the least desirable place to put it,” Ristow said. “However, if the motion allows us to explore both locations with a variety of designs, and that keeps it going, I’ll support it.”
