Supervisors approve rezone and grant variance on contested parcel split; staff delete planning conditions in separate rezone

The Fresno County Board of Supervisors on June 16 approved multiple planning actions including a rezone request, deletion of planning-commission conditions, and a contested variance appeal.

Public Works and Planning staff recommended rezoning two vacant parcels (about 1.26 acres) from C-6 commercial to M-1 industrial and asked the board to delete three Planning Commission-recommended conditions that staff said were inappropriate for a legislative rezone (site-plan adherence and an unrelated right-of-way dedication). The board voted unanimously to approve the rezone and adopt the negative declaration, with Supervisor Pacheco recused on the item.

Separately, the board heard an appeal on a planning-commission denial of a variance to split an existing substandard 10-acre parcel into a 2-acre and an 8-acre parcel and allow construction of a new single-family home on the 2-acre parcel. The Planning Commission had denied the variance 8–0 after staff concluded three of the four mandatory variance findings could not be made. The appellant said the split was necessary to keep family farming operations and to help care for aging parents.

Radley Reap, speaking against the appeal, told the board that the code generally does not permit creating new substandard parcels and urged the board to follow staff and the Planning Commission. The board's district supervisor described the matter as a family farm issue and moved to grant the variance; the motion passed unanimously.

Planning staff said that if the board grants a variance it would be appropriate to include standard project notes and a mandatory condition requiring compliance with a site plan during project review. The board approved the applications with the conditions discussed on the record.

The actions included both legislative (rezoning) and quasi-judicial (variance on appeal) decisions; in several instances supervisors emphasized local family and agricultural considerations when diverging from the Planning Commission recommendation.