Wednesday may be
‘make-or-break’ time for In-N-Out Burger’s plans to install a
restaurant at Cochrane Avenue and U.S. 101. Back for a third time
before the City Council, the popular fast food, drive-through
restaurant is butting heads with the citizen/city staff updated
general plan that does not want such an
establishment at the city’s “gateway.”
Wednesday may be ‘make-or-break’ time for In-N-Out Burger’s plans to install a restaurant at Cochrane Avenue and U.S. 101. Back for a third time before the City Council, the popular fast food, drive-through restaurant is butting heads with the citizen/city staff updated general plan that does not want such an establishment at the city’s “gateway.”
The Planning Commission has given its approval but city staff still strongly recommends against it. The council will decide.
The site – the northwest corner of the interchange, across from Cochrane Plaza – is designated for two sit-down restaurants at 6,300 and 8,000 square-feet. Tharaldson Corp., the property’s owner has been unable to find such restaurants to pay their asking price; In-N-Out is willing and has brought a 5,000-6,500 square-foot Applebee’s Restaurant along to occupy the adjacent lot. In-N-Out is designed at 3,253 square-feet – far smaller than the sit-down dining establishment envisioned by the general plan update committee.
At first, the sit-down restaurant was to be located nearest the freeway; in this latest plan, the spots are switched and the drive-through will be the first thing drivers see when exiting the highway.
City staff objects to the applicants request to move the buildings closer to Cochrane Road than the plan calls for and for a narrower than planned landscape buffer. Staff also mentions deviations from the “established architectural theme and required design standards.” Some earlier changes requested by staff, including lengthening the drive-through ‘stack up’ lane have been accomplished; others, such as landscaping depth, have not.
The applicant also requests signage changes in the freeway signs: making it larger and adding a panel for Media Arts, the Thomas Kinkade manufacturing and office facility located north of the site and visible from the freeway offramp.
Council, according to the staff report, has two choices: to accept the Planning Commission’s recommendation approving In-N-Out and Applebee’s disregarding the deviations from general plan standards or to go with staff and approve Applebee’s but not In-N-Out.
Council, in past meetings with burger representatives, has made it clear they would welcome In-N-Out – just not at that site, having the opinion that the restaurant is so popular that it would do well almost anywhere in the city.
The staff recommends accepting the project’s mitigated negative declaration (the report on a project’s environmental effects), on the grounds that it will not “significantly degrade” the quality of the environment, animals or plants or historic sites. Traffic, land use and noise are also not deemed to present a problem in the long term.
Stormwater runoff control and erosion control devices are included in the declaration.
INDOOR REC CENTER
Council will also consider programming spaces, budget and project schedule for the indoor recreation center, to include youth and senior centers, proposed for an Edmundson Avenue site just east of Community Park.
Whether or not the city retains sufficient Redevelopment Agency funds to build the center has been questioned lately by Councilman Steve Tate and Councilwoman Hedy Chang. Previous projects, the Community and Cultural Center and the Aquatic Center have all gone several million dollars over budget; the RDA funds total a maximum of $187 million and, Tate said recently, “not much is left.”
The complete Council agenda in full is available at the City Clerk’s desk in City Hall. City Council and/or the Redevelopment Agency meets at 7 p.m. most Wednesdays in City Hall Chambers, 17555 Peak Ave. Details: 779-7271. Council meetings are broadcast live on cable access channel 17. The city’s website is www.morgan-hill.ca.gov
