General plan has Stockton creeping north
Stockton may be expanding its footprint closer to Lodi in the future. Stockton’s proposed draft general plan designates a 17,500acre portion of land extending north from Eight Mile Road to nearly Armstrong Road and from Westlake Villages in the west to Davis Road in the east as an economic and education enterprise zone.
Businesses envisioned for the property include industry that provides a significant number of jobs, offering above-average wages and that cannot be reasonably accommodated elsewhere within the city limit. The designation also allows for housing and link transportation to support this development.
The Stockton Record reported this week that Sierra Club California recently raised concerns about the possibility of housing being developed north of Eight Mile Road.
However, Stockton public information officer Connie Cochran explained that the city is taking a smart growth approach when it comes to housing north of Eight Mile Road, maintaining the city would have to have some housing development to support any commercial, economic or educational developments that would take place there.
“If we had the opportunity to bring a university or a big company that would provide a lot of jobs, you wouldn’t want to provide a lot of jobs there and then make people have to drive there,” she said. “You would want to provide the appropriate amount of housing for that particular type of development. Our full plan is really focused on infill, but if we have the right economic development opportunity, and we’re really smart growth and we’re environmentally friendly and healthy, then we would build the economic development, then you would want to build all the supportive-type things right there near it which would include housing. You can’t bring jobs if there is no place for people to live.”
According to Cochran, the intent is not to build housing north of Eight Mile Road, but to potentially build economic development in that area.
Leonard Kahn, Lodi Unified School District’s chief business officer, said the district would be prepared if growth occurs in that area.
“This plan is basically a resurrection of a plan that was issued back in 2006 or 2007, and the district at that time did acquire property in and around that area,” he said. “We got somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 developable acres in that particular area.”
In addition to the land, the district also has bonding authority and funds left from a bond measure passed in 2006 to help prepare for potential growth.
“We’re reasonably confident that if growth did start to come we could develop and deliver a K-8 program in the area,” Kahn said.
However, if growth became too large, the district would have to be more active in terms of funding and planning for additional school sites, Kahn said.
“The district has a current plan in effect with ideal placements for K-6s and high school sites throughout the North Stockton area, but at this time we only own the roughly 30 acres in the North Stockton area. We‘d be forced to look into additional property acquisitions if or when that kind of development occurred,” Kahn said.
“We’re a school district. We aim to serve students, and if the housing development comes we will be ready for it,” Kahn said.
Lodi Chamber of Commerce President Pat Patrick believes that Stockton should continue to focus on infill and developing the area south of Eight Mile Road before crossing over to the north. He’s concerned that a substantial amount of growth in that area could result in potential “sales tax leakage” because residents from Lodi may patronize the businesses that may be developed in that area.
“Lodi right now is needing more sales tax to help us with city funding, in particular public safety,” Patrick said.
According to Lodi City Planner Craig Hoffman, this stretch of land between the two cities has been the topic of discussion for years and will continue to be in years to come.
“It’s an issue that I think regionally Stockton takes very seriously,
Lodi takes very seriously, and more importantly, San Joaquin County takes very seriously,” Hoffman said. “I know the San Joaquin County general plan identifies this area north of Eight Mile Road and south of Lodi’s general plan area as being rural and agricultural, and we’ll just have to see what the future holds before growth can take place in these areas. The Local Area Formation Commission has to allow development to take place, so we’ll have to see what the future holds.”