Proposals to develop land west of Interstate 5 drew criticism from Del Puerto Canyon residents at Tuesday’s General Plan Advisory Committee meeting.
The committee had previously looked at designating hundreds of acres of land for commercial use just west of I-5 and hundreds more for housing west of that. Several Del Puerto Canyon residents who attended the meeting, however, said the canyon is the wrong spot for major development.
“Do not develop that commercial,” canyon resident Clare Bell said. “We don’t need it.”
The GPAC, an 11-person committee organized by Patterson City Council, has been tasked with drafting revisions to the city’s general plan, a state-mandated document that guides long-term city growth. When the committee finishes, it will have recommendations for how much the population should change, if and where development should occur and what type of development will be allowed.
Several of the committee members said that if the land west of I-5 isn’t taken into the city’s sphere of influence, the county is likely to allow commercial development there and thus get any sales tax generated in the area.
“There’s been continued interest in dropping retail (west of I-5),” said Annette Smith, the City Council’s representative on the committee.
The West Side’s representative on the county board of supervisors, Jim DeMartini, said this week by phone that those concerns are unfounded.
“That’s just totally not true,” he said. “We’re not going to let anyone develop out there, and we’re not in the development business.”
DeMartini said he has never heard about any county plans to allow anything west of I-5.
A possible exception was close to three years ago, when a property owner wanted to attract a big-box store to an area close to Villa Del Lago, but still on the eastern side of I-5. DeMartini said the county had no interest in pursuing the plan, but instead took it to Patterson’s mayor at the time, David Keller, who also had no interest in the project.
DeMartini said he thinks landowners pushing for commercial designations on their property are behind the desire to develop west of the freeway.
“(Patterson City Council) is getting a lot of pressure from people that own the land,” he said. “It’s all about money. It’s not about quality of life. That’s the sad truth.”
The initial recommendation to develop that area came up during the committee’s first crack at the general plan in September 2007. During that round, the committee said the city should grow from about 21,000 people to about 154,000 by 2048. Other aspects of that initial plan included allowing housing developments in all directions around Patterson, including in Del Puerto Canyon, and commercial development along both sides of the interstate.
Patterson City Council did not like those results, especially the huge population growth, and ordered a new review process. Council members also worried that the committee had been rushed, and several GPAC members said they were uncomfortable with the results because they didn’t have enough time to gauge the impacts.
Initially, the council hoped to have the entire revision process complete by November, which it described as an aggressive deadline. Council members pressed for the quick turnaround with the hope of derailing a proposed 7½-square-mile industrial center in Crows Landing.
However, after being awarded a $1.26 million no-bid contract to guide the revision process, planning consultant Dave Moran with Crawford Multari & Clark Associates repeatedly said it would be extremely difficult to use the revisions to block the Crows Landing project.
The council has since backed off the November deadline. The GPAC is expected to have its recommendations complete by Sept. 30. The Patterson Planning Commission will then take a crack at the revisions, and, ultimately, the City Council will have the final say.
With more time to deliberate, the advisory committee has opted to do a more thorough review before making recommendations. This time around, it’s designating study areas that consultants will crunch numbers on before any votes are taken or recommendations are made.
Before Tuesday’s meeting, committee members had chosen to look at the impacts of new housing south and east of town, more commercial areas along Highway 33 and agricultural preserves from Elfers Road to the San Joaquin River.
At Tuesday’s meeting, along with looking to the west, the committee also looked at putting in more industrial development north of Patterson. Members were interested in industry close to the intersection at Baldwin Road and Highway 33 adjacent to railroad tracks. The rail access is the reason to put industry there, proponents said.
Other industrial expansion being considered would be northwest of Patterson’s Keystone Pacific Business Park. It would run a swath of industrial land from the business park to Zacharias Road. A new I-5 interchange is anticipated to connect to Zacharias, and committee members hoped to keep truck traffic flowing by placing industry close to that spot.
The motivation behind the expanded industrial space is to add steady, well paying jobs to Patterson’s home-heavy landscape, committee members said. Still, the committee wanted to look into redesignating some industrial land at Orange Avenue and Highway 33 that appears in the existing general plan. The land has gone unused for decades, and the committee showed interest in allowing housing on the land.
The GPAC’s next meeting will be Aug. 12.
- To reach John Saiz at the Irrigator, call 892-6187 or e-mail him at
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