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Tracy City Council's Westside Specific Plan Debacle
The city council's previous meeting on the Westside Specific Plan was muddled from the outset, with staff and their high-priced consultants giving deference to and seeking direction from council on how to proceed forward with the Plan’s development. In short, staff asked council to give them a land use (zoning) designation for the 536-acre project allowing them to study and prepare the impacts of such designation for their [council’s] future consideration. It seems a simple enough task but not for Tracy’s city council.
Vargas recuses herself until next year?
Veronica Vargas never fails to disappoint. After the Mayor introduced the matter, Vargas was quick to jump in to recuse herself, as she did back in April, because her client Patterson Petroleum LLC owns land in the project area. There are many questions that surround Vargas’ recusal, something that we wrote about last April (read more here), including the very suspicious timing of her recusal. For instance, why hadn’t she recused herself during the Tracy Gateway discussions and council actions? However, as you’ll see in the video below, Vargas dropped a short but significant statement at the end of her recusal.
Vargas is indicating that in 2022, Patterson Petroleum will no longer be her client, thus allowing her the freedom to vote on the Westside Plan. But does this really clear her conflict of interest? Won’t she still have prejudice given her past dealings with them? Won’t she want to help them for future business? Is there anything stopping her from going off their payroll for a couple of months, vote in their favor, and then return to their payroll? It would seem to set a terrible precedent having a developer give a sitting council member money, terminate their business contract, then the council member voting in favor of their project. Isn’t that a bribe? If it walks like a duck and sounds like a duck…
Given Vargas’ history, including a guilty verdict by the FPPC for failing to disclose a business affiliation with council matters, is there anyone who trusts that Vargas does not have any financial ties to the Westside development. Once she has a conflict of interest, it should remain in place. She needs to continue abstaining on anything related to the Westside Specific Plan. She took money from one of the developers. She can’t claim the conflict expires.
The “panhandle” or, as it’s more commonly referred “the gateway,” land use designation is at the heart of the issue.
The “panhandle” portion of the property (seen in the blue boxes below) shares a border along the 205.
Developer Mike Sandhu wants to build industrial warehouses in this area arguing that there is no longer a market for office space, etc. The problem, however, is that NO ONE - not residents nor the majority of council members - wants industrial warehouses along the 205. Staff and Kimley-Horn, therefore, as a means of compromise, decided to give residents two land use designation alternatives from which to choose: a) Business Park Industrial or b) Residential - Medium High. The survey results indicated that a majority of residents prefer Alternative A versus B, though again stressing they do not want industrial warehouses, distribution centers, etc. Here’s where council stumbled over themselves on Tuesday night.
Stalemate!
For hours staff and council went round-and-round in circles debating how to proceed forward. Council members Davis, Bedolla and even Arriola made it clear they do not support industrial warehouses within the “panhandle.” Bedolla made a motion, seconded by Davis, to support (in general) an office space-hospital/healthcare specific land use designation, thus ruling out the possibility of warehouses. Mayor Young and Arriola, however, voted “no” to the motion, noting that it was too narrow of scope and that the land owners would never agree to that motion.
Arriola then made a motion, seconded by Mayor Young, to support Alternative A: Business Park Industrial in the “panhandle” with the condition of no industrial warehouses along the 205. Both Davis and Bedolla voted against the measure, both with opposition to ‘industrial’ use definitions. Staff, for instance, showed industrial parks that were not ‘warehouses’ but, for the most part, the building examples all looked similar to warehouses minus the significant amount of trucks. But both Davis and Bedolla rightly so remained skeptical with Alternative A. Why? Look no further than the same land use designation for the Cordes Ranch Specific Plan.
The Cordes Ranch Specific Plan has a Business Park Industrial (BPI) land designation within it. The BPI zoning includes all of the things that a majority of residents are looking to avoid at the gateway to Tracy. It’s therefore hard to believe that the property owners will agree to conditions that limit the primary uses designated within the BPI zone.
At the end of the night, Mayor Young took the advice of counsel and made the motion to table the matter, allowing staff/consultants time to come back with more concrete options/direction for council. From one perspective, one could applaud council for listening to the community by not supporting industrial warehouses in the “panhandle.” From another perspective, it was clear that council had no idea what to do.
At the end of the night, Mayor Young took the advice of counsel and made the motion to table the matter, allowing staff/consultants time to come back with more concrete options/direction for council. From one perspective, one could applaud council for listening to the community by not supporting industrial warehouses in the “panhandle.” From another perspective, it was clear that council had no idea what to do.
Tracy does NOT want to be Hayward (no offense).
Give former Mayor Rickman credit where credit is due. He said from the outset that Tracy does not want the gateway to the city to resemble what has happened in Hayward. If one is traveling north on 880 into Hayward, the gateway to their city is nothing more than non-descript industrial buildings and warehouses that are as much uninviting as they are unsightly. The below image illustrates from above the massive amount of industrial buildings surrounding 880 from the southern part of Hayward through central Hayward.
Aerial view of Hayward's gateway along 880
There is nothing inviting for people passing through this portion of 880 in Hayward. There is no shopping, restaurant, etc options to pull people off the freeway and into the community to spend time and, more importantly, money. Rickman wanted to avoid the same thing happening to Tracy, thus encouraging the city to move more towards what Dublin has done along their freeway access points.
Dublin has done the opposite of Hayward in building desirable and inviting commercial, retail, and mixed-use options along 580 that draw people into their community. People commuting through Dublin and residents throughout the Tri-Valley area frequent the commercial centers in Dublin. It’s working as new, upscale grocery stores and businesses continue to open in these centers in Dublin. We encourage Tracy’s City Council to take a drive to both Dublin and Hayward to determine which community they would prefer to emulate.