City planners’ vision for Morgan Hill’s epicenter sounds like a
Parisian streetscape: with specialty wine shops and bakeries,
open-air restaurants overlooking sprawling sidewalks and dense,
urban housing.
City planners’ vision for Morgan Hill’s epicenter sounds like a Parisian streetscape: with specialty wine shops and bakeries, open-air restaurants overlooking sprawling sidewalks and dense, urban housing.
The Morgan Hill Planning Commission will continue its public hearing on the matter during a special meeting at 7 p.m. in City Hall Tuesday. This is a continuation of last week’s planning commission meeting.
Morgan Hill’s downtown is defined by the city as the 18-block area from Dunne to Main avenues and Del Monte Avenue to Butterfield Boulevard, with two acres of Britton Middle School’s campus and the southwest corner of Monterey and Dunne, known as Morgan Hill Plaza, making up two additional blocks.
The downtown outline makes use of Measure A, the November ballot measure that allows for 500 residential units free from the growth control system’s competition.
“Everything for the downtown is on track,” Mayor Steve Tate said.
Much of the VTA parking lot for Caltrain users is proposed to become high density housing and most of Monterey Road will be mixed-use, for housing, residential and offices coexisting in one- two- or three-story buildings.
Brad Jones, who owns BookSmart on East Second Street with his wife Cindy Meiser, said he thinks the city has “done a wonderful job deciding what they’re going to do.” But, he’s concerned that the VTA lot will outpace other projects along Monterey.
“I don’t have a problem with them changing the zoning. But I hope they’re not looking at that as one of their first projects. It’s too early for that area to be developed and it would take away from the development in the core.”
The 2009 Downtown Specific Plan is an update to the 2003 plan, which revised a plan from 1980.
Two acres of Britton’s field, facing Monterey, would be rezoned from public facilities to mixed use, to allow the potential for future teacher housing there.
Meanwhile, at the south end of the downtown stretch, the Morgan Hill Plaza Shopping Center, at Dunne and Monterey, would be rezoned from commercial to mixed-use, allowing for not just retail but also offices and residences.
Tate said that there will be some traffic and parking issues, but the downtown parking plan is in place and “it will evolve.”
The Downtown Specific Plan steers clear of two potentially controversial topics. The document does not propose narrowing Monterey and is neutral about the Granada Theater’s future.
Early next year, though, the city council may decide to narrow Monterey when they update the circulation element of the city’s general plan. The downtown plan would accommodate these changes, according to the document.
Tate was skeptical that a two-lane Monterey was feasible.
The downtown specific plan would also require any new nightclubs, bars or theaters downtown to have a conditional use permit, so that the city would have the authority to review and regulate hours of operation and require security. The conditional use permit would be required for restaurants with bars inside, as well.
The plan makes several proposals to ease the burden these changes would place on adjacent roadways. The plan suggests installing a second northbound left-turn lane at Main and Butterfield Boulevard and installing a traffic light at Dunne Avenue and Del Monte Street.
Another notable: the water district would collaborate with the city to build a trail alongside Upper Little Llagas Creek, which will run through Morgan Hill’s downtown. Once completed, this $105-million project would protect the downtown area from future flooding. Much of Monterey Road in the downtown was underwater Oct. 13 after almost seven inches of rain fell on the city during the Bay Area’s strongest storm in decades.
The City Council is expected to adopt the Downtown Specific Plan in November. A public hearing there is tentatively scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 4.
The entire document can be viewed at morganhill.ca.gov/whatsnew. The 2009 Downtown Specific Plan is an update to the 2003 plan, which revised another document from 1980.
