Lodi council continues public hearings amid bike path concerns

The public hearings for the Rose Gate II and Villa Fiore subdivisions set for Wednesday night’s Lodi City Council meeting have been continued to Feb. 15 in order for council to further explore concerns from the public about having adequate bicycle and pedestrian connectivity on the west side of town.

“There were some items that the city council had some questions on so staff wanted to provide some answers, and we’re just continuing it,” Lodi Senior City Planner Craig Hoffman said.

Back in December, the Planning Commission voted 7-0 to recommend the city council approve both Rose Gate II, located south of Lodi Avenue and West of Lower Sacramento Road, and Villa Fiore, located at Lower Sacramento Road and Century Boulevard, after hearing a request from a Bike Lodi member that a bike path be included in the plans.

Lodi resident Jeff Pell, a member of Bike Lodi, was concerned that a bike path initially planned for the area would not be constructed.

According to Pell, the Westside Master Plan dated April 2010 included a bike path along the west boundary of the Rose Gate subdivision. He said the path was removed in August of 2012, after the plan was updated and the first phase of Rose Gate was approved. He said the path was also missing from plans for the second phase, and asked the commission to consider reincorporating it.

The issue trickled over to the Jan. 4 city council meeting, where several Bike Lodi members voiced their concerns related to the bike path.

City Manager Steve Schwabauer explained the Westside Master Plan, which was intended to be a greenbelt buffer between Lodi and the agricultural areas to west, included open space for drainage basins and a bike and pedestrian path along the western edge of the city, which was in some parts intended to be a barrier to future development to the west.

That concept remained in Lodi’s development plans through 2007. That year, Schwabauer said, the council revised the plan, eliminating the bike path. That brought a corridor for some landscaping area within the Westside area. Later, a new general plan was developed that continued to call for a bike path to the west, but it was not clear where that would be located, Schwabauer said. Since then, the council has approved several subdivision maps for both Rose Gate I and II and Villa Fiore that do not include the Westside Master Plan improvements eliminated by the council in 2007.

Hoffman is confident that city staff and the developers will be able to resolve the issue.