Residents persuade council to reject truck lot in their
neighborhood
Chris Bone – Staff Writer
GILROY
Oscar Sencion Jr. heard “no” for a second time Monday night even though he showed up with nearly 100 friends.
The 17-year-old stands to inherit his father’s Morgan Hill-based trucking company that transports recycling and compost materials to a from farms, and his family wants to move the business to a property they own at the corner of Murray and Las Animas avenues.
But a vocal group of about 50 nearby neighbors also showed up at Monday night’s council meeting and told the council one after another how much they do not want Sencion’s fleet of 12 diesel trucks driving and parking near their Murray Avenue homes. The city already neglects the increasingly industrial area that borders U.S. 101, they said, and their kids are running out of the fresh air and quiet streets that they used to enjoy as children.
“This neighborhood really needs your help,” said Thomas Muniz of the North Murray Community Neighborhood Association, a group of more than 125 families, many of whom have lived along Murray Avenue since the 1960s and ’70s.
Jess Maldonado is one such resident who said he has watched his neighborhood turn for the worse.
“We used to play out there as kids, so I’m not happy with any part of that place being industrial,” Maldonado said. “It’s crappy now. You’ve got to look over your shoulder all the time for big rigs.”
As Maldonado sat down among dozens of opposing children and adults, the latter raised their signs that read “I support Sencion trucking” and “Vote yes for Sencion.” Council chambers can hold 142 people, and the massive turn-out Monday night forced residents and Sencion supporters to spill out into the lobby.
“All the drivers and I thought we should make signs and go down to City Hall and show them that we’re individuals who contribute money and property taxes to this city,” Sencion Jr. said.
But the council instead sympathized with the residents’ arguments.
“They already live next to a freeway. They already have enough smog,” said Councilman Peter Arellano. “Do we have to add more to it?”
The body voted unanimously to deny Sencion Trucking’s appeal of the Planning Commission’s Sept. 6 decision to refuse the company a permit to build an office and overnight parking lot at the Sencions’ residence-cum-business.
Councilmen also questioned the legitimacy of a petition Sencion submitted with 270 signatures after resident Veronica Vela noticed her address on the petition even though she opposed the project.
“I live at 449 Willy Court, and nobody at my house is in favor of this,” Vela told the council. Another resident also asked the council to remove his signature from the petition, too, claiming he did not know what he was signing at the time.
Planning Commission Chairman Tim Day joined the majority in the 6-1 vote two months ago and said afterward that confusion over the area’s role as industrial or residential has made it an issue.
“That part of the community – I don’t want to say they’re treated unfairly – but we went and built homes there many years ago, and then we changed our direction and went commercial, so now there’s an isolated little pocket of homes in Gilroy having to deal with commercial issues.”
Day was referring to homes in the residential-zone island on Murray Avenue built by South County Housing after the city annexed the county land in the early 1980s and then designated the area as “industrial park,” or light industrial. The houses adjoin seven other cul-de-sacs of homes along Murray Avenue south of Las Animas Avenue, which were built in the late ’60s and early ’70s and then brought into the city as a residential pocket within a largely commercial zone, according to Planning Division Manager Bill Faus.
The 87-year-old farm house at 9120 Murray Ave., where Sencion wants to build his parking lot, is what’s known as a “non-conforming” residence because it was grandfathered into the light industrial area when the city annexed the county’s “rural residential” land and then designated it light industrial.
Even though it’s already in the light industrial area, a truck yard requires a “conditional use permit,” and this is what the Planning Commission denied Sencion. Sencion’s lawyer, Thomas Thomatos, said Muniz and company lived more than a quarter mile away from the proposed parking lot and that his client bought the light-industrial property for more than $1 million with the intent of moving his business there.
Without the permit, Sencion and his employees will face financial hardship, Thomatos said.
The Sencions tried to avoid this by telling the council the trucks would avoid the opposing residents by using alternative routes through a private road to the north, but councilmen said Sencion’s 47-foot white trucks would hang over the rail road tracks when stopped at points intersecting Monterey on their way to U.S. 101. That’s why school buses cannot drive in those area, councilmen said.
But Thomatos and Sencion supporters told the council that other trucks drive up and down Murray and cross Monterey all the time, and Murray is designated as an arterial roadway, as well. Despite this, Thomatos said Sencion promised the trucks would depart before families woke and after they came back home from work, but several of the residents said their children don’t play on set schedules.
Councilman Dion Bracco stopped the back-and-forth to tell his colleague that he suspected duplicity on Sencion’s part. Councilman Roland Velasco agreed and said he drove to Sencion’s current parking facility in Morgan Hill and saw a dilapidated, muddy area for campers and scattered pallets that he did not want to migrate to Gilroy.
“If that site is any indication at all as to the quality of the project he plans on putting in here, then I can’t support this,” Velasco said.
In turn, Sencion offered to pave over his dirt lot and build a 7-foot fence lining his property, not to mention the curb and gutter improvements he agreed to, Thomatos said. It was not enough for Bracco.
“All they’re trying to do is tell us anything they want us to hear,” Bracco said.
With her infant son in her arm, though, Veronica Valdez told the council she and her husband, who works for Sencion, need his new location because gas is too expensive. Margarita Lara also rejected Bracco’s skepticism.
She and Rod Hartley work at Precision Wash on Monterey Road, south of town. The two said they wash Sencion’s trucks every evening and cannot understand how the city allows other truck-using companies such as ProloGix near Sencion’s property, but he can’t have his there.
“It’s a double standard,” Hartley said.
City Administrator Jay Baksa and Mayor Al Pinheiro said city staff would look into compliance issues of Sencion’s next-door neighbors who routinely have parking lots full of trucks.
The council concluded by agreeing to pay more attention to the Murray Avenue residents, especially since the area west of Sencion’s farm house could see a 27-acre industrial subdivision if a separate project passes muster.
Sencion Jr. walked out of the council chambers as the decision became apparent, having lost again.
