Lodi Council delays decision on driveway dispute

A dispute over a shared driveway was heavily debated by attorneys representing owners of a proposed gas station and a local preschool during Wednesday’s Lodi City Council meeting.

The conflict ended without a resolution as the council pushed that matter back for further discussions.

The council continued the public hearing for Omair Nasim’s appeal to reconsider the approval of a modified site plan and architectural review for a proposed 76 gas station at 141 E. Harney Lane to June 6. The modified plan and review were previously denied by the Lodi Planning Commission due to concerns of a shared driveway with the Lodi Montessori School located at 2525 S. Stockton Street.

Nasim was looking to modify plans to include the shared driveway to the north of the project site and eliminate the separate driveway and median included in the initial plan adopted by the Planning Commission in November of 2017.

In response to safety concerns from Montessori, Nasim included a separate driveway on Stockton Street in the plans instead of using the shared driveway that he has an easement for. The plans also included a condition requiring the applicant to install a median on Stockton Street. After that, Nasim said franchisors reviewed the layout of the plan and concluded that the location of the separated driveway could not accommodate fuel deliveries.

According Nasim, distributors felt that the separate driveway would be a liability. The concern was that the driveway was too close to the intersection with Harney Lane, making it hard for drivers to get into the left lane and make a left turn onto Harney Lane.

According to City Planner Craig Hoffman, the original owner of the Montessori school created a parcel map to subdivide the land and it included a shared driveway easement for both parcels. He said that land is zoned industrial and that the gas station is an allowed use for that zoning.

While Nasim does have an easement to utilize the shared driveway, Montessori officials don’t feel it’s a compatible fit for the area.

“I just don’t think a gas station is a good pair to be next to a school,” said Jolie Zins, Montessori co-owner and director of personnel.

“This is an industrial property. It’s not a residential property,” Hoffman said. “Yes, you do have Lodi Montessori School. They’ve existed here since 1998, and I’ve had the question posed to me ‘how did a Montessori School get into an industrial zoning destination?’ I don’t know the answer to that. They exist, and they are a legal non-conforming use, but it’s tough to say a use that is allowed within an industrial zone can’t go there because we have another use to the north that maybe shouldn’t be there.”

For Zins, the shared driveway poses a safety concern for the school, and with parking already limited, she is afraid that the increase in traffic could cause more issues.

“It’s a safety issue for our school, mainly for our children,” Zins said. “We’re a preschool, so we have 75 children here every day that get dropped off in the morning and picked up in the afternoon. With the shared driveway people that are exiting the gas station would be not only using the shared driveway to exit but are most likely going to be cutting across our parking lot to exit out of our parking lot because we have two exits and entrances at our school.”

Council members also had concerns about safety.

Councilman Doug Kuehne suggested that the driveway be widened and that maybe Nasim could agree to some conditions to receive deliveries outside of school hours, but was still hesitant to approve the appeal.

Councilwoman JoAnne Mounce was adamant that the shared driveway would pose potential traffic issues.

“I think it’s not only going to be a traffic nightmare ... it’s going to be traffic hazard,” Mounce said. “That corner right now on any given time of day is a rat nest, and all we’re going to be doing is adding on to that. There is a lot more to take into consideration here than just they have legal access.” Johnson agreed. “I think that intersection at certain points and times of the day is going to be a complete war zone. With all due respect to the applicant, the worst thing you can put on that lot is a gas station,” he said.

Hoffman said that because the easement is a private easement between the applicant and the school, that the gas station has a legal right to utilize the driveway to access the property. Denying the use of easement could possibly expose the city and the school to litigation, City Manager Janice Magdich said.

“We keep talking to them about other options but they keep going back to the shared driveway because they want to have access on Stockton Street as well,” Zins said. “Unfortunately, there’s not many advantages we see in sharing a driveway. We weren’t expecting a gas station to want to be next to a preschool.”

During the public hearing the legal counsel for both parties went head to head. Diane Kindermann, the attorney representing Nasim, argued the project was originally analyzed and recommend for approval by the city without the separate driveway. The traffic engineer completed a study and determined there weren’t any significant traffic impacts as a result of the project, and the school’s attorney never retained a traffic engineer to complete a study, Kindermann said.

Brett Jolley, the attorney for the school, argued that the shared driveway creates the possibility of sending traffic through the school’s parking lot to use their northern exit and it poses a public safety hazard.

Michael Tener, a parent of children attending the school, voiced his concerns about having a shared driveway. He said he was not only uncomfortable with the idea of his children’s school sharing a driveway with a gas station, but that having strangers driving through the school parking lot poses a risk as well.

“I can’t imagine what can expose a business to more liability than having its traffic being directed through a school,” Tener said.

He asked the council to deny the appeal and help to keep the kids safe.