GILROY
– If Gilroy’s historic downtown is going to be revitalized, it
will have to do so with a low-income health care clinic at its
core.
GILROY – If Gilroy’s historic downtown is going to be revitalized, it will have to do so with a low-income health care clinic at its core.
Gilroy City Council failed to approve Monday night a ban on downtown medical centers that has put Garlic Town merchants and health care advocates at loggerheads in recent days. Both factions came to City Hall last night en masse, but by the end of the nearly three-hour public hearing it was the health care world that came out on top.
Councilmen Peter Arellano and Charlie Morales voted against a proposal to ban new health care clinics between Fourth and Eighth streets along Monterey. Six of the total seven Councilmember votes were required to pass the moratorium.
This means if Gardner Family Health Network can close escrow within 60 days, it will be able to purchase he Garlic Festival Store building and turn it into a medical and dental center serving low-income and underinsured patients – a use merchants believe can only harm Gilroy’s ability to attract new retail shops in the coming years.
The 60-day period is the amount of time it will take city staff to hammer out a Conditional Use Permit process. City Council voted unanimously to make health care providers go through the permit process when they want to operate in the heart of downtown.
City Council also asked Gardner CEO Reymundo Espinoza to make a concerted effort to keep the front of the building as a retail store as the company designs plans for the clinic. Espinoza would be under no obligation, beyond his own word, to do so.
“We would consider doing anything to keep the peace,” a beleaguered Espinoza told Council Monday.
In an interview immediately following the vote, Espinoza could not guarantee how much space from the 10,000 square-foot shop would be left for retail. Espinoza also could not make any guesses about what type of retail shop he would lease the space to, but said a pharmacy or nutrition store were possibilities.
“It’s an extraordinary situation, but we’re going to try something,” Espinoza said. “We just don’t know the ramifications involved yet.”
If escrow takes longer than 60 days, Gardner Family Health Network will still have the right to buy the 7526 Monterey St. location. However, it would have to go through the process for a Conditional Use Permit before it can start operating there.
At least four Councilmen – Al Pinheiro, Roland Velasco, Bob Dillon and Craig Gartman – have been sympathetic to business operators’ concerns in recent weeks. Pinheiro and Velasco have been vocal about their desire to see Gardner come to downtown, but not on the ground floor of any building between Fourth and Eighth streets along Monterey.
Downtown activists believe revitalization is easiest to achieve when restaurants, cafes and specialty shops occupy retail spaces that front Monterey Street. They like the idea of bringing residential and professional spaces into the downtown mix, but they want to see those uses on the second and third floors of downtown buildings.
“It may be in the best interest for Gardner to move to Fifth and Monterey (on the ground floor), but it’s not in the best interest of the entire community,” Velasco said.
Repeatedly Monday and in recent weeks, merchants, business property owners and representatives of the Chamber of Commerce and Gilroy Economic Development Corporation echoed sentiments about Gardner coming in and filling a serious need. However, they stressed that the particular downtown location for a health clinic was not beneficial to the future of Gilroy’s historic downtown. Gardner currently has a 2,500 square-foot office at Sixth and Princevalle streets in Gilroy the company says it has outgrown.
“What do I tell my four renters who say they are going to leave if a medical clinic moves in across the street?” downtown property owner Joe Rizzuto asked Espinoza after last night’s session.
Ever since they learned The Garlic Festival Store was going out of business and selling its building to Gardner Family Health Network, downtown activists have been calling for a moratorium to work alongside an existing ban on businesses.
The previously approved ban, which could last nearly two years or until the downtown master plan is created, includes: used car lots, auto repair shops, junkyards, shops that sell cars or car parts, “head” (drug paraphernalia) shops, tattoo parlors, body piercing studios, pawn shops and establishments that sell liquor but do not offer meals.
A master plan for downtown will not be put together until October. The Garlic Festival Store will close its doors Aug. 15.
Councilman Arellano, a medical doctor, has not bought into the argument against a health care clinic in the core downtown.
Arellano and several others have argued that having a reputable clinic like Gardner on Fifth and Monterey will bring more foot traffic downtown. They also believe the doctors, dentists and other medical staff at the clinic would be inclined to eat lunch and do errands downtown, generating more tax dollars.
In addition to providing health care, Gardner could use its nonprofit status to land grants for things like affordable housing, Espinoza said.
When these alleged benefits did not sway the majority of opinions on the Council, Arellano kept pressing the issue.
“The visions for downtown have been going on ad nauseam for 20 years,” Arellano said Monday night. “Not once in that time have I heard that no one wanted medical clinics there until now.
“I’m telling you another business you don’t like is going to come in front of us, and you’re going to want to stop that. Let’s just stop every new business for now if we’re trying to make a plan for downtown.”
Comments like Arellano’s cast an undertone to Monday’s session that went beyond the business versus health care battle and into class warfare. Mayor Tom Springer also told fellow Councilmembers he hoped the issue was not about “who we want to bring to the downtown” since a health care clinic would mean more low-income and minority families would come downtown.
“That appalls me,” Springer said.
Gilroy dentist John Perez, who has a private practice that is not part of the Gardner network, weighed in on the anti-minority sentiment he was feeling.
“What you’re doing (by banning health care clinics) may not be unconstitutional, but it’s too discretionary,” Perez said. “There used to be laws … where you couldn’t sell to a Latino or a black person. What you’re doing here is arbitrary if not discriminatory.”
Gardner Family Health Network countered rumors that the company would open a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center downtown. Those rumors were false. Gardner will continue and expand its basic medical and dental care it now provides at Sixth and Princevalle.
