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Council, commission dive into general plan

Written by John Saiz / Patterson Irrigator /

Wednesday, 03 October 2007

At a glance

WHAT: Joint City Council and planning commission meeting

WHEN: 6 p.m. Thursday

WHERE: Council Chambers, City Hall, 1 Plaza

Should Patterson grow? How much? And where?

Those are some of the questions city officials will tackle at a joint meeting Thursday between Patterson’s City Council and the city’s planning commission.

The groups will review recommendations by a committee of local residents and businesspeople and get their first crack at revising the city’s general plan — a state-mandated document that guides city growth.

City employees and planning consultants have also drafted a plan that will be reviewed. While the two plans have many similarities, there are some notable differences, such as the amount of land designated for housing and commercial areas.

The council, which has ultimate authority over the plan, wants to complete it by November 2008. It got the ball rolling in January, when council members voted to hire planning consultants Crawford, Multari & Clark Associates to guide the revision process.

GPAC's Vision

Patterson’s community development department had three workshops during the summer to gauge the public’s opinion, and the General Plan Advisory committee has met regularly since then.

The committee recently finished its first round of meetings and presented its recommendations for population growth and land use, which will be reviewed Thursday.

The committee recommended an average growth rate of 5 percent annually until 2048, which would take the city from 20,875 people to more than 154,000. To house those people, the committee suggested miles of homes to the east, north, south and west.

Under their plan, much of that land would be designated “estate residential.” Those areas could contain an average of just one home for every three acres and as many as two homes per acre. The committee’s suggestions included several hundred acres of estate-residential development west of Interstate 5.

It also suggested designating about three miles of commercial land both east and west of I-5, between Sperry Avenue and Zacharias Road. Though Zacharias Road doesn’t go all the way to I-5, the committee anticipates that an interchange eventually would be built close to that area.

Consultant's Vision

In addition to helping the committee draft a plan, consultants and city planners have compiled their own suggestions. They shared the committee’s vision of more than 154,000 people, but their plan excluded new estate residential zoning and development west of I-5, except for a small pocket of highway service commercial close to the Sperry Avenue interchange. Businesses allowed under that designation include restaurants and gas stations. Villa Del Lago is the only place in the city now designated as highway commercial.

The consultants recommend designating land for highway service commercial uses only along the east side of I-5, not west of the freeway.

The consultants also recommended agricultural areas to the south stretching from the California Aqueduct to Highway 33. The advisory committee also recommended an agricultural area south of the city, but tucked it into a smaller area between I-5 and the Delta-Mendota Canal.

To reach John Saiz at the Irrigator, call 892-6187 or e-mail him at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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