Theater ordinance OK'd
after marathon meeting
Sac Bee Excloo
YUBA CITY 10/9/02 (YSN) - The Yuba City Planning Commission OK'd Wednesday a controversial zoning ordinance that would limit new movie theater construction to a blighted downtown area targeted for redevelopment.
The ordinance would restrict theater construction to the vicinity of Bridge and Shasta streets near the section of Plumas Street, which has been the focus of recent gentrification..
The ordinance would automatically expire in five years, opening up other areas of the city to future theaters, backers said.
The commissioners approved the proposed rule on a split vote, 6-0-1, with chairman Rory Ramirez voting against it and member Jeff Mathews absent.
The commission's recommendation now goes to the City Council for further consideration, probably not before Nov. 19, a Planning Department spokeswoman said.
Commissioners cast their ballots after three hours of tense public comment on the issues of urban planning and property rights. Ramirez called the overflow audience one of the largest ever to attend a commission meeting.
A spokesman for Cinemark USA Theaters, which was poised to build a 12-screen megaplex with stadium seating and Surround Sound on he north side of town, said he was disappointed with the vote..
"But this is just the beginning of a process. We'll now take our case to the city council," said Tom Owens, vice president of development for the Dallas-based Cinemark.
In their comments, some speakers favored planning guidelines for wise growth; others argued that property rights and free enterprise trumped all other values; still others called for a balance between the two.
In recent decades, traditional downtown anchor stores have migrated to malls. "big box" stores, superstores and strip shopping centers, said Michael Freedman, a San Francisco planning consultant closely involved in Yuba City's revival.
The next generation of movie theaters as "exciting entertainment centers" represented cities; last best hope for drawing consistently large crowds of consumers to downtown business districts, Freedman said.
"Almost nothing else will do it," said Freedman.
If the commissioners did not act to secure a theater for downtown Yuba City's core downtown area, it might be years before population growth and advancing theater technology would give them a second shot at it, Freedman said..
Estimates of the number of people a state of the art theater might lure to downtown Yuba City ranged from 148,000 to 800,000.
Certain interest groups, however, often resist zoning that fosters movie palaces --theater owners chief among them, Freedman said
"Theater owner-operators never want to build downtown where it's more expensive. They always want to build in the sprawl, where construction costs less," Freedman said.
Advance publicity sparked complaints from Cinemark, which leases and runs the town's largest theater, Movies 8. It seems the firm had already struck a deal to build its new megaplex on a 10-acre site on the north side when news of the downtown-only ordinance surfaced.
Community Development Director Denis Cook (cq) saw the debate as "revitalize downtown versus unbridled sprawl," while Cinemark framed its complaint in terms of government intrusion, property rights, and free enterprise - hot-button words in the politically conservative Sutter County.
Merchants in the city's core, such Don Peterson, manager of the old Sutter Theater, tended to see the ordinance as a lifejacket for the once-floundering downtown.
Others opposed the ordinance for economic reasons, like Diljit Bains, daughter and spokeswoman for Didar Bains, the land tycoon who owns the site where Cinemark intends to build its new megaplex.
If passed, the proposed ordinance would unfairly imperil that deal, Diljit Bains argued. "It's our property, It's our buyer. We have a right to sell," she said.
Some, including Gregory Scandalis, opposed the ordinance philosophically, fearing it spelled favoritism and government interference in the marketplace.
"There's going to be public money spent to finance (a downtown theater). Up to $2 million, I've heard," Scandalis said.
True, the city would indeed be assisting by improving the streets and infrastructure in the area downtown, but that would be done for any developer or theater-owner that chose to build there, Commissioner Maynard Dunn countered,
Before voting for the ordinance, Commissioner Mike Cartoscelli reassured
The pro-free enterprisers in the audience that he was nonetheless ideologically on their side.
"I'm a capitalist with a capital 'C'," Cartoscelli said, emphatically.
after marathon meeting
Sac Bee Excloo
YUBA CITY 10/9/02 (YSN) - The Yuba City Planning Commission OK'd Wednesday a controversial zoning ordinance that would limit new movie theater construction to a blighted downtown area targeted for redevelopment.
The ordinance would restrict theater construction to the vicinity of Bridge and Shasta streets near the section of Plumas Street, which has been the focus of recent gentrification..
The ordinance would automatically expire in five years, opening up other areas of the city to future theaters, backers said.
The commissioners approved the proposed rule on a split vote, 6-0-1, with chairman Rory Ramirez voting against it and member Jeff Mathews absent.
The commission's recommendation now goes to the City Council for further consideration, probably not before Nov. 19, a Planning Department spokeswoman said.
Commissioners cast their ballots after three hours of tense public comment on the issues of urban planning and property rights. Ramirez called the overflow audience one of the largest ever to attend a commission meeting.
A spokesman for Cinemark USA Theaters, which was poised to build a 12-screen megaplex with stadium seating and Surround Sound on he north side of town, said he was disappointed with the vote..
"But this is just the beginning of a process. We'll now take our case to the city council," said Tom Owens, vice president of development for the Dallas-based Cinemark.
In their comments, some speakers favored planning guidelines for wise growth; others argued that property rights and free enterprise trumped all other values; still others called for a balance between the two.
In recent decades, traditional downtown anchor stores have migrated to malls. "big box" stores, superstores and strip shopping centers, said Michael Freedman, a San Francisco planning consultant closely involved in Yuba City's revival.
The next generation of movie theaters as "exciting entertainment centers" represented cities; last best hope for drawing consistently large crowds of consumers to downtown business districts, Freedman said.
"Almost nothing else will do it," said Freedman.
If the commissioners did not act to secure a theater for downtown Yuba City's core downtown area, it might be years before population growth and advancing theater technology would give them a second shot at it, Freedman said..
Estimates of the number of people a state of the art theater might lure to downtown Yuba City ranged from 148,000 to 800,000.
Certain interest groups, however, often resist zoning that fosters movie palaces --theater owners chief among them, Freedman said
"Theater owner-operators never want to build downtown where it's more expensive. They always want to build in the sprawl, where construction costs less," Freedman said.
Advance publicity sparked complaints from Cinemark, which leases and runs the town's largest theater, Movies 8. It seems the firm had already struck a deal to build its new megaplex on a 10-acre site on the north side when news of the downtown-only ordinance surfaced.
Community Development Director Denis Cook (cq) saw the debate as "revitalize downtown versus unbridled sprawl," while Cinemark framed its complaint in terms of government intrusion, property rights, and free enterprise - hot-button words in the politically conservative Sutter County.
Merchants in the city's core, such Don Peterson, manager of the old Sutter Theater, tended to see the ordinance as a lifejacket for the once-floundering downtown.
Others opposed the ordinance for economic reasons, like Diljit Bains, daughter and spokeswoman for Didar Bains, the land tycoon who owns the site where Cinemark intends to build its new megaplex.
If passed, the proposed ordinance would unfairly imperil that deal, Diljit Bains argued. "It's our property, It's our buyer. We have a right to sell," she said.
Some, including Gregory Scandalis, opposed the ordinance philosophically, fearing it spelled favoritism and government interference in the marketplace.
"There's going to be public money spent to finance (a downtown theater). Up to $2 million, I've heard," Scandalis said.
True, the city would indeed be assisting by improving the streets and infrastructure in the area downtown, but that would be done for any developer or theater-owner that chose to build there, Commissioner Maynard Dunn countered,
Before voting for the ordinance, Commissioner Mike Cartoscelli reassured
The pro-free enterprisers in the audience that he was nonetheless ideologically on their side.
"I'm a capitalist with a capital 'C'," Cartoscelli said, emphatically.
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