Hollister
– It can be hard to get along with your neighbors. Sometimes
it’s a barking dog or loud music that leads to squabbling.
Sometimes it’s a plan for a multi-million dollar shopping center
and the city’s zoning laws.
Hollister – It can be hard to get along with your neighbors. Sometimes it’s a barking dog or loud music that leads to squabbling. Sometimes it’s a plan for a multi-million dollar shopping center and the city’s zoning laws.
A dispute centering on a Hillcrest Road property just north of McCray Street came to a head last week when brothers Albert and Reuben Rodriguez asked the city Planning Commission for permission to improve the property with new paint, landscaping and signs.
The Guerra family, which hopes to develop the surrounding land into a shopping center featuring a Lowe’s home improvement store, asked the commission to deny the request. The commission sided with the Rodriguez brothers, but Al Guerra said the larger issues remain unresolved.
“Our concern was the bigger picture,” Guerra said.
The key to that bigger picture, Guerra said, is the city’s new general plan and how it’s implemented. The plan was completed in 2005, and some local businesses still need to catch up with the changes – including, Guerra acknowledged, his family’s nut shelling factory.
Planning Commissioner David Huboi believes the city needs to transition gradually to full compliance with the general plan.
“We have a new general plan, and there are lots of nonconforming businesses,” Huboi said. “We have to be patient and reasonable when resolving these issues.”
But Guerra argued that the Planning Commission needs to work harder to turn the plan into a reality.
“We’ve got to start putting things in where they belong,” Guerra said. “If we close down the nut factory, we shouldn’t just be able to put in a cannery or whatever we want. I don’t think that’s what the city wants.”
Guerra isn’t happy with what’s happening on the Rodriguez brothers’ 1.62-acre property, which currently includes the auto body shop Hollister Muscle, as well as two cabinet shops, storage facilities for the Leal Vineyards and Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital, and an auto repair facility.
Guerra said the auto facilities and cabinet shops aren’t in compliance with the city’s zoning and its new general plan, which designates the property as a mixed-use commercial and residential area. Guerra acknowledged that the businesses moved in before the general plan was updated, but he said that if the body shop just moves across Hillcrest, it will be in compliance.
Huboi, who worked on the general plan update, said bringing businesses into compliance with the general plan has to be done slowly.
“We don’t want to disrupt someone’s business and put people out of a job,” He said. “It’s not undermining the plan.”
Hollister Muscle could also be a roadblock as the proposed shopping center moves forward, Guerra said. He argued that a restaurant, for example, is going to think twice about moving in when they learn about the auto body shop.
“They’d say ‘Well, we can’t go in that corner,'” Guerra said. “We’ve got to look at another property.'”
The Guerras and the Rodriguez brothers have been clashing since the brothers bought the property in 2004. Both sides said the dispute has hurt their businesses. The Guerras reported that cars from the auto body shop have blocked access to their nut shelling factory, while Albert Rodriguez said the holdup on approval for Hollister Muscle’s spray booth – a spray booth the Guerras complained about – has forced the body shop to pay to tow cars out-of-town for painting.
But at this point, Rodriguez and Guerra said they want to resolve their differences and move on.
“We are willing to work with the Guerra family … as long as it pencils out,” Rodriguez said.
Anthony Ha covers local government for the Free Lance. Reach him at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or ah*@fr***********.com.
