Planning commission to tackle health center issue Thursday
January 13, 2010
At a glance
• WHAT: Patterson Planning Commission meeting
• WHEN: 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 14
• WHERE: City Hall, council chambers, 1 Plaza
The Patterson Planning Commission will consider changes this week to the city’s general plan and related documents designed to allow the Del Puerto Health Center to move to the Keystone Pacific Business Park.
The meeting Thursday, Jan. 14, will be the planning commission’s first foray into the controversial topic in nearly a year. Its most recent move was to rule Feb. 26, 2009, against the health center’s landlord, John Ramos, who appealed city staff’s approval of the move on the grounds that the city’s zoning laws did not allow such medical uses in the business park.
The health center saga has seen numerous twists and turns since then, starting with the City Council ruling in favor of Ramos’ appeal in May. Proponents of the move later opted to push a ballot initiative that would allow the change, but the debate over the initiative’s true motives turned hostile and eventually landed it in court.
Now, for the first time, the situation is on the brink of a solution. The planning commission, if it approves the changes, will recommend that the council adopt them. If the council OKs the changes by Feb. 9 — likely at its regularly scheduled meeting Feb. 2 — the initiative and the legal challenge against it will go away, paving the way for the health center to move to a new, larger space in the business park.
Such are the terms of a memorandum of understanding approved by the council Jan. 5. The memorandum also states that if the council does not approve the changes by Feb. 9, both sides will get back to what they were doing before — namely, pushing the initiative or opposing it.
Because of the document’s aggressive timeline, the planning commission will likely be forced to make a decision at the Thursday meeting — or to have a special meeting to continue the discussion next week. Anything else would risk derailing the process outlined in the memorandum.
The commission will review changes to the city’s general plan, its West Patterson Business Park master plan, its zoning laws and its development agreement with Keystone.
The changes would adjust the zoning to make the health center an allowed use in the industrial business park zone and then change the other documents to ensure they are all consistent. The proposal adds many other allowed uses to the business park, as well — including many of the uses that would have been added by way of the contested initiative.
In addition to those changes, a negative declaration — a document that says the changes will cause no significant environmental harm, including those produced by increased traffic — must be approved by the council by Feb. 9. The planning commission is not required to act on the negative declaration, but commissioners will review it and make comments that will be passed along to the council.
