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The San Ramon Planning Commission is set to discuss Tuesday whether to allow a tutoring center in southern San Ramon to continue operating, with its landlord and city officials at odds over parking requirements.
San Ramon planning staff recommends letting the Kumon Math and Reading Center of San Ramon stay open in the Alcosta Professional Plaza while the city and property owner hash out the parking issues, but the commissioners could consider revoking Kumon’s use permit for non-compliance.
“These issues are beyond the control of the applicant (Kumon), who has little control to compel the property owner to comply with the conditions of approval,” city assistant planner Ryan Driscoll wrote in a staff report to the commission.
Kumon operates in Building B, Suite 14 at the complex at 9260 Alcosta Blvd., southeast of the intersection of Alcosta and Fircrest Lane.
The tutoring center’s use permit was approved in June 2002, but San Ramon officials learned last year that the business had expanded without necessary city approvals, according to Driscoll.
The city’s zoning administrator last August signed off on the expanded Kumon, while stipulating a pair of permit conditions related to a parcel at the site previously used for parking that is currently fenced in and adjacent to the plaza’s normal parking lot.
The conditions required the owner of Building B and the adjacent parking lot area to reopen access and install new pavement striping in that parking lot, but the owner subsequently indicated several paving contractors said the existing asphalt has deteriorated and needs to be repaved, Driscoll said.
The owners of all buildings in the complex created the Alcosta Owners Association to manage the complex’s common areas, but the association voted in May not to participate in the lot repaving, according to Driscoll.
The owner of Building B, who also owns the parking parcel in question, has refused to comply with the parking lot improvements, leaving Kumon out of compliance with its permit requirements, Driscoll added.
City officials are now left to debate whether to revoke Kumon’s permit altogether or amend it with the parking issues pending.
“It is important to understand the revocation of the minor use permit would only remove the applicant and the Kumon Learning Center operation from the property and does little to address the outstanding maintenance and access issues (for the parking lot),” Driscoll wrote.
City staff recommends the commission modify Kumon’s permit to remove the conditions related to the parking lot and allow the tutoring center to continue operating. The city would pursue the outstanding issues related to access and maintenance of the parking lot through the site’s property management agreement or the city nuisance ordinance, Driscoll said.
The commission meeting is set to start at 7 p.m. inside the council chamber at San Ramon City Hall, 7000 Bollinger Canyon Road.
In other business, two new commissioners and one sitting commissioner will be sworn in to begin new, four-year terms on the dais.
The San Ramon City Council reappointed Eric Wallis to the commission and selected Gary Alpert and Victoria Harris as new commissioners. Commission chair Donna Kerger is retiring, and first-term commissioner Bijal Patel applied but was not reappointed.
The commission will host a recognition ceremony for Kerger on Tuesday night. They will also select the commission’s new chair and vice chair to serve through June 2017.
