More changes to general plan-approved zoning will occupy the
City Council Wednesday when council members will consider what to
allow at Cochrane/ Madrone Parkway, a vacant lot near Cochrane and
Monterey roads and assisted living near DePaul Health Center.
More changes to general plan-approved zoning will occupy the City Council Wednesday when council members will consider what to allow at Cochrane/ Madrone Parkway, a vacant lot near Cochrane and Monterey roads and assisted living near DePaul Health Center.
Council is not the only agency concerned with land use and public safety issues this week.
Tonight the Planning Commission will be asked to approve use permits for wireless antennae at Vineyard Town Center and at Morgan Hill Plastics, Jolene and East Dunne avenues. If the commission gives its permission, a 50-foot fall, 19-inch telecommunications pole and equipment would be located next to MH Plastics and the daycare and preschool, A Children’s Garden at 610 E. Dunne Ave.
Vineyard Town Center at Monterey Road and Edmundson Avenue would add six panel antennae to an existing monopole plus five equipment cabinets.
The antennae would be used by cell phone companies.
Both land use changes the council will be asked to approve concern giving up industrial/light industrial use, turning it into commercial or multi-family.
The owner of a 15.8-acre plot of land on the southeast corner of Cochrane and Monterey roads is asking to for a change from industrial to multi-family medium and medium density residential. The site is next to Cochrane Village, an affordable housing development. If council approves the zoning change, additional residential would eliminate Cochrane Village’s place as an island of apartments in a sea of industrial use.
Up the road, at Cochrane Road and Madrone Parkway, across from Cochrane Plaza, developers Toeniskoetter and Breeding, Inc. are asking to change zoning on a 7.72-acre site from industrial to commercial, which would then allow a grocery and drug store, retail, restaurants and offices.
No tenants have been lined up, said TBI President Brad Krouskup.
“We’re just on the front end of the process,” he said Monday.
Krouskup said they will be talking to many grocery companies and are especially interested in smaller specialty, regionally oriented groceries instead of the larger chains.
“We’ll be talking to them all,” he said, “Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s (Cosentino’s and Lunardi’s included).”
Council could consider the two zoning requests to work together.
Madrone Business Park north of Cochrane Road, and Morgan Hill Ranch Business Park across the street to the south, both have empty buildings and vacant land for industrial uses.
Health care possibilities could increase if a zoning arrangement to include a 94-unit assisted living, child care facilities and a 13,350 square-foot office building on the DePaul Health Center and adjacent property continues to work its way through the approval process.
City Council meets at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 15, and the Planning Commission meets 7pm tonight, Sept. 14, in City Hall Chambers, 17555 Peak Ave. Details: www.morganhill.ca .gov or 779-7271. Council and Planning Commission meetings are broadcast live on cable access channel 17.
Carol Holzgrafe covers City Hall for The Times. She can be reached by e-mail at [email protected]
