TUSTIN : Residents Fight Day-Care Decision

A group of residents will try to persuade the City Council on Monday to overturn a Planning Commission decision that would allow a large family day-care center to continue operating in their neighborhood.

The council will review the decision after hearing public testimony. A vote to overturn the Planning Commission decision would void the center’s permit and put the Socorro Jones Family Day Care center at 13022 Ranchwood Road out of business.

Several letters of opposition have been received by the city clerk’s office from a co-owner of the property that houses the day-care center, residents next to and on the same street as the center, and the Bellewick Community Assn., the homeowners association that governs the area. Also, four residents of Ranchwood Road spoke in opposition to the day-care center at the July 13 Planning Commission meeting.

Residents’ complaints are primarily that a commercial business is operating in a residential zone; that too many children are being cared for in the single-family home; that there is inadequate parking for the business, and that the center attracts too much traffic.

Resident Ernest Barrett, who lives next door to the center, said allowing the facility to operate in the neighborhood violates a 1968 Declaration of Restrictions on the property that states it is illegal for a commercial venture to be established on residential property.

“It would be inconsistent for the city of Tustin to issue a license permitting a business activity, knowing that the licensed activity could be conducted only in violation of existing contractual obligations,” he wrote in his letter of opposition.