The Planning Commission approved Monday a General Plan Amendment and Zone Change that will also help continue with the Casino project that has been on hold because of a lawsuit.

As part of the report given by City Manager Victor Carrillo to the City Council and reported by the Calexico Chronicle last week, said that parallel to the Manzanita effort is the lawsuit made against the City of Calexico regarding a property next to the Casino property and the issues that need to be resolved regarding this settlement. This lawsuit has stalled the Casino project development for quite some time.

The settlement agreement was signed in January of 2010 but the dismissal of the lawsuit would not occur until the following issues are resolved such as housing element amendment approval by the City Council which has been completed; a development agreement for Raul Estrada’s property which will required approval; a General Plan Amendment and Zone Change to Raul Estrada’ property of approximately 33 acres of land form commercial highway and industrial to High-density residential apartments.

The Planning Commission approved Monday a general plan amendment that would re-designate the project site form Commercial Highway, Commercial Highway usage to High Density Residential usage in order to ensure conformity with the City’s General Plan. This will allow the area to have residential apartments between 12.1-20 acre units/acre. This proposed zoning would be consistent with the proposed General Plan amendment and the city’s zoning classifications.

In a report given by planning director, Armando Villa, said this application would re-designate and change zoning to allow future construction of multi-family residential developments. These actions could be characterized as efforts to comply with housing element policies by changing zoning to allow higher density residential. The above application would comply with the housing element directive approved by the City in 2009.

With the Planning Commission approval, the item will now goes to the Calexico City Council were the governing board will have to pass a first and second reading and the zone change will take effect on December 2nd. Raul Estrada will legally withdraw the lawsuit thus allowing the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) to hold hearings regarding the Environmental Impact Statement which is a result of transferring City land to Federal Land Designation for purposes of establishing and Indian Reservation/Casino.