City Council to decide on church housing project after Planning
Commission’s split vote
GILROY
The South Valley Community Church may need a little divine intervention to get past the City Council.
The night before next month’s election, the council will decide whether the church can build the houses it says it needs to help finance the construction of a new church, private school and sports field.
The Planning Commission did not offer a recommendation to the council Nov. 5 because it split on the issue with a 3-3 vote after much debate. Commissioner Art Barron was absent for the commission’s Oct. 4 vote.
The debate occurred because the church’s land lies within the confines of the 2005 Hecker Pass Specific Plan, which limits the number of homes built in the area to 506. The church, however, wants a “small project exemption” to build 15 homes on a six-acre portion of its 27-acre rectangular property along Hecker Pass Highway.
Herein lies another problem: The exemption only allows for projects of 12 units or less.
The church’s extra three homes means the council must amend and approve the specific plan, a process that could take 10 months.
Thanks to the specific plan, the church’s land became zoned for schools, religious institutions and community centers: all things the church plans and wants to build. But it says it just needs some extra capital to do so.
“Over the past seven years, our church elders have been working very hard to raise the necessary funds to complete these plans, but unfortunately with the rising costs of materials and labor, it has become very difficult and challenging for us to move forward,” church member Bob Costamagna told the commission. “It is absolutely necessary and central for us to include this residential component to generate (enough) funds.” Otherwise, he added, “we’re done.”
But Commissioner Ermelindo Puente, who voted to deny the residential exemption along with Joan Spencer and Joan Lewis, said the specific plan’s rules took about two years to formulate and deserve enforcement.
“The thing I don’t like is we’re starting to open the door here,” Puente said. “We either go by one rule, or we don’t go by the rule.”
The task force that created the specific plan once had the land marked as residential, though, and Commissioner Brad Bannister said along with parks and recreational facilities, agricultural and commercial regions, and open space, the specific plan already calls for 506 homes. Fifteen more is not a big deal percentage-wise, he said.
“I don’t think it’s a slap in the face to those who worked on the specific plan,” Bannister said.
Chair and council candidate Tim Day extracted a promise from Costamagna that the church would not ask for more units if 15 does not generate enough money down the road.
Day also specifically noted that on top of its planned private school, the church would also pay school impact fees to the Gilroy Unified School District.
All this made it a tough decision for Spencer, who said, “I really felt bad voting against the church.”
Now it’s up to the council, which could allow the special 15-unit exemption and clear the way for the church to amend the specific plan, or nix the whole plan and bring the church elders back to square one.
Chris Bone covers City Hall for The Dispatch. Reach him at 847-7109 or cb***@************ch.com.
