“I'm very uncomfortable with the 154,000 (population figure).”
— Annette Smith
Patterson councilwoman
A recommendation to have more than 154,000 people in Patterson by 2048 was scaled back Thursday at a joint Patterson City Council and Planning Commission meeting regarding the city’s future general plan.
Council members and commissioners decided to drop the 40-year population figure to about 100,000 and keep the 20-year figure close to 58,000.
“I’m very uncomfortable with the 154,000,” Councilwoman Annette Smith said.
“154,000 is too much,” agreed Councilman Sam Cuellar.
One planning commissioner said the population figures should be scaled back even further.
“I want to see that number cut in half,” Elias Funez said. “I’ve seen what the 1992 general plan did to us.”
The 154,000 figure was recommended during the city General Plan Advisory Committee’s meetings. The 11 voting members of the committee had been tasked with starting the revisions to the general plan — a state-mandated document that guides city growth.
The council and commission also disagreed with several other suggestions the committee made. They wanted denser residential development than the committee had suggested and reworked plans of where development should occur.
The meeting was the latest in the general plan revision process, which the council initiated in January. The council and commission will meet again to review the project later this month. Then, their decisions will go back to the advisory committee for further review.
Ultimately, the council will have final say in the matter. It’s their goal to have the plan complete by November 2008.
The advisory committee said there should be an average of four homes for every acre, which is a little denser than the current city average. Officials at the joint meeting recommended six homes per acre, though their decision was divided. Half of the eight members present wanted six per acre, two wanted five per acre and two wanted four.
The city’s planning consultant, Dave Moran of Crawford, Multari & Clark Associates, said the higher density would mean fewer car trips, cheaper homes and less urban development on agriculturally viable land.
Much of the conversation was guided by two competing plans that were presented to the council and commission. Along with the advisory committee plans, city staff and planning consultants came up with their own recommendations. The council and commission went with staff’s recommendation of less population and more density, but sided with the GPAC for much of the land use issues.
The GPAC recommended designating land west of Interstate 5 for general commercial and ranchette homes. Staff and consultants did not recommend developing any land west of I-5, except small pockets of highway service commercial at the Sperry Avenue interchange and an anticipated interchange near Zacharias Road.
In a close vote, the council and commission decided to go with the GPAC’s recommendation of hundreds of acres of homes and businesses west of I-5.
“This is the land use issue we’re going to be remembered by,” Councilman Dominic Farinha said.
He expressed reservations about developing Del Puerto Canyon, but ultimately voted in favor of the commercial and residential land use. The final vote was 5-3.
Commission Chairman Jim McCluskey was one of the dissenters. He referred to the area as sacred and suggested planners shouldn’t even discuss development in Del Puerto Canyon for at least 40 years.
Commissioner Funez gave a brief presentation about the canyon, focusing on its unique wildlife geology and history. He voted to preserve the canyon as it is.
“I don’t think an inch should be used for commercial or estate residential,” Funez said.
The commission and council also went with the GPAC’s recommendation for expansions to the south of town. They decided the land between the city’s southern border and the Delta-Mendota Canal should be designated residential. They suggested the land south of the canal and north of Marshall Road should be designated for agriculture.
Consultants and staff wanted even more ag land in that area. They suggested not having homes south of Elfers Road and designating all the land between Elfers Road, I-5, Highway 33 and Marshall Road agricultural.
Some councilors feared the bigger ag zone without homes would encourage development of the proposed 4,800-acre proposed PCCP West Park industrial park in and around the Crows Landing Air Facility to the south. Council members also expressed concerns that not designating land for use west of I-5 would allow the county to build its own commercial project.
Moran suggested that designating land is not a very effective way for cities to prevent unwanted county development.
“Until it is annexed by the city, the county controls it,” Moran said.
By the end of the meeting, which was more than four hours long, most of the items the council and commission planned to discuss had been addressed. The remaining discrepancies in the two plans and concerns raised by attendees will be dealt with at the next meeting either Oct. 23 or 30.
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The GPAC members never saw the staffs version of the plan before we received a packet from the city.
I personally don’t favor any development of any kind west of I-5, either at Zacharias or Sperry. The hills should be left like they are as a natural boundary to urbanization.
Claude Delphia