Just wondering if anyone had any thoughts on the Clayton Community Churchs plans to build addition church facilities on the adjacent lot (next to the old Stage Coach Inn)..
The property is zoned for commercial business. A church in down town Clayton is not a commercial business and will not bring tax revenue to the city. Sunday's will cause parking issues. Look at the building on Ygnacio Valley Road where a church is doing massive building. The article in the CC Times last week mentioned that they have major issues with parking because there is no room. I wonder what the neighbor hood around the chruch thinks of having strange people parking along their neighbor hood streets.
The Church claims they will bring customers to the businesses in Clayton. Well, the only business I see open on Sundays is the Clayton Club, a small coffee shop, La Veranda, and Mudd's. I doubt that the entire congregation will frequent those establishments every Sunday. Especially the Clayton Club!!!
Gizmoe, sounds pretty much what I have been hearing from majority of the folks in Clayton I have talked to. My reasoning is that there is very few parcels of commercial property in our down town area, and to take a piece of prime time real estate and make it into a church, just does not make very good business sense. The town of Clayton is constantly trying to come up with idea's to generate additional income to fund various city projects which has come back to the general public in ballot initatives. This property should be used as it was originally zoned for and falls within the right of the Town Centers Specific Plan. Personally, I believe the city leaders have a responibility to make sure this property should be used for something else that could actually generate a better tax base for the town as a whole. The Clayton Community Church folks need to understand that we are NOT against their Church. We are just opposed to where they would like to build it. Also in the Town Meetings, I find it rather disturbing to hear lawyers representing a church of God making legal threats to try and intimidate the city leaders. That is not very Christian in my mind. I go to St Bonaventure down the road, and we were going through a similiar process of trying to expand and ran into opposition from some of the neighbors, so as good Christians, there was a compromise to cut things back. Why can't these good folks do the same thing?
Appreciate your input. Also agree on your comments as far as Stage Coach Inn being vacant, and that parcel of land sitting there vacant as well. But the city leaders are trying to revitalize the downtown area with retail businesses. As you can see if you have gone through downtown area recently behind Jims Haircut place they have started grading that property for commercial use, also the Villiage Market is just about open, not too mention the place where the gas station was voted down is now a vibriant Longs Store. As I have said before, I have nothing at all against CCC or whatever religion they are practicing. My concern is for Clayton as a community. Every year we seem to be getting ballot initiatives to raise our taxes to cover things like landscaping, the new park maintenance, as well as lighting, due to the shortfalls to generate enough retail taxes. Now we have an opportunity to correct the mistakes that were made in the past and do it right. To allow CCC to have that much prime downtown land could be a very huge (non taxible) mistake. When they purchased that parcel, they were aware that it was zone for commercial/retail.
Hopefully they will reconsider and sell it to the developer that is handling the parcel behind Jims Hair. He has made verbal offers, and it has been documented in the Clayton Pioneer newspaper.
Posted on Fri, 12/07/2007 - 19:42 — by Irishman
Joined: Apr 2007
Posts: 1
The property is zoned for commercial business. A church in down town Clayton is not a commercial business and will not bring tax revenue to the city. Sunday's will cause parking issues. Look at the building on Ygnacio Valley Road where a church is doing massive building. The article in the CC Times last week mentioned that they have major issues with parking because there is no room. I wonder what the neighbor hood around the chruch thinks of having strange people parking along their neighbor hood streets.
The Church claims they will bring customers to the businesses in Clayton. Well, the only business I see open on Sundays is the Clayton Club, a small coffee shop, La Veranda, and Mudd's. I doubt that the entire congregation will frequent those establishments every Sunday. Especially the Clayton Club!!!
Joined: Dec 2007
Posts: 13
Gizmoe, sounds pretty much what I have been hearing from majority of the folks in Clayton I have talked to. My reasoning is that there is very few parcels of commercial property in our down town area, and to take a piece of prime time real estate and make it into a church, just does not make very good business sense. The town of Clayton is constantly trying to come up with idea's to generate additional income to fund various city projects which has come back to the general public in ballot initatives. This property should be used as it was originally zoned for and falls within the right of the Town Centers Specific Plan. Personally, I believe the city leaders have a responibility to make sure this property should be used for something else that could actually generate a better tax base for the town as a whole. The Clayton Community Church folks need to understand that we are NOT against their Church. We are just opposed to where they would like to build it. Also in the Town Meetings, I find it rather disturbing to hear lawyers representing a church of God making legal threats to try and intimidate the city leaders. That is not very Christian in my mind. I go to St Bonaventure down the road, and we were going through a similiar process of trying to expand and ran into opposition from some of the neighbors, so as good Christians, there was a compromise to cut things back. Why can't these good folks do the same thing?
Joined: Dec 2007
Posts: 13
Appreciate your input. Also agree on your comments as far as Stage Coach Inn being vacant, and that parcel of land sitting there vacant as well. But the city leaders are trying to revitalize the downtown area with retail businesses. As you can see if you have gone through downtown area recently behind Jims Haircut place they have started grading that property for commercial use, also the Villiage Market is just about open, not too mention the place where the gas station was voted down is now a vibriant Longs Store. As I have said before, I have nothing at all against CCC or whatever religion they are practicing. My concern is for Clayton as a community. Every year we seem to be getting ballot initiatives to raise our taxes to cover things like landscaping, the new park maintenance, as well as lighting, due to the shortfalls to generate enough retail taxes. Now we have an opportunity to correct the mistakes that were made in the past and do it right. To allow CCC to have that much prime downtown land could be a very huge (non taxible) mistake. When they purchased that parcel, they were aware that it was zone for commercial/retail.
Hopefully they will reconsider and sell it to the developer that is handling the parcel behind Jims Hair. He has made verbal offers, and it has been documented in the Clayton Pioneer newspaper.
Again, thank you for you input.