Benicia Planning Commission on Thursday unanimously sided with city staff’s recommendation to uphold a zoning administrator ruling to issue a use permit for a home-based family day care at 579 Cooper Drive.

The decision, with minor adjustments to conditions of approval to accommodate parking and clients’ dropoff and pickup space, supports a ruling originally issued March 20 by interim Community Development Director Dan Marks after hearing Kristi Claverie’s application March 10.

Marks later revised his ruling to add that California Health and Safety Code requires houses used for day care to meet regulations that apply to other single-family homes.

Paula Broome and Kathleen McCrarey, residents of Cooper Drive, appealed Marks’s decision April 7, citing multiple concerns including increases in traffic, how fire and other emergencies would be handled and construction work they said was done without permit to the house by a previous occupant.

Day care opponents cited instances in which other children had run into the street despite traffic, and how a dog had died when struck by a car.

Yamilet Alfaro-Gunion, a neighbor who presented the appellants’ case to the commission, said a wrought-iron fence surrounding the back yard had 4-inch spaces between its bars. “Parents should be aware children could put their heads through the fence,” she said.

She said a load-bearing wall had been modified and resealed four years before, a balcony hadn’t been built to code, a previous occupant’s 14-year-old child had rerouted the house’s electrical wiring, and some birch trees in the house’s front yard had died and needed removing. “It’s a potential safety issue,” she said.

In addition, a Megan’s Law application indicated a registered sex offender lived three-quarters of a mile from the house, she said.

McCrarey told the commission, “We’re fighting an uphill battle. We feel we need due process.” Having to pay $150 to file the appeal “touched a nerve.”

She said the day care would add 16 more cars to the street’s traffic, as well as three day care employees and 12 children. “I don’t look forward to that.”

Broome concurred. “We have rights as tax-paying residents of this city.”

She told the commission and Claverie, “You need to be considerate of other neighbors,” and suggested Cooper Drive residents should have been told of Claverie’s intent to start a day care in the house, though she said Claverie did approach to speak with her when she was at her mailbox.

Those siding with appellants questioned the appropriateness of 579 Cooper Drive for day care, and the city’s approval of the use permit before the construction questions were settled.

Maria Teresa Matthews, another Cooper Drive resident, said the house had no fence in front and worried that children would run into the street. Sandra Cross, who lives on nearby Bigler Court, said the neighborhood is “quiet with minimal cars. I enjoy the quietness.” She said 14 more cars on the street “really changes where I live.”

Principal Planner Amy Million told the commission that some of the concerns cited by the appellants were out of the hands of the city. Instead, state regulations govern requirements for a day care’s liability insurance, as well as Benicia Fire Department’s examination of the building and other permits and licensing.

State mandates require day care operators to have emergency evacuation plans and meeting places, Million said.

She said another suggestion, that Benicia follow rules adopted by San Jose, didn’t apply in this case, not just because it was another city’s laws but because the ordinance governed commercial day care centers, not home-style day care operations.

Another objection the appellants aired is that Claverie currently lives at 130 Gill Way, where she operates the day care she wants to move to Cooper Drive. Claverie is required by California law to live where she operates her business.

In fact, complaints neighbors might have with Claverie’s operation would go to state officials, not to city staff, contract attorney Kat Wellman said.

Million and Claverie explained the move was prompted by the owner of 130 Gill Way, who told his tenant he needs to move into the house because of a divorce.

Claverie said the appeal has been costly, because she is paying rent for both her current and future homes. In fact, she and her husband have depleted $15,000 of their savings and had to turn down the opportunity to adopt their own child after having been on a waiting list for some time, she said.

She said state requirements are more strict than those of the city, and that under San Jose’s rules she wouldn’t have had to apply for a use permit as she did in Benicia.

Claverie said state laws would prevent her clients’ children from playing in the front yard. And she reminded the Council that when she moved her business to Gill Way, many residents of that area expressed the same concerns, but worst-case scenarios never materialized. Her operation is so quiet, she said, some neighbors thought she already had moved.

Her business has never received a complaint lodged against it, she said, and she has been compliant with state and local requirements. Addressing those who prefaced their objections by saying, “It’s not personal,” she answered, “It is personal, because it’s my business in my home. … It may not be personal to them, but it’s had an extremely dramatic impact on my life, in a way it won’t upset theirs.”

Among her supporters were families who have been long-time clients of her Baby McBean day care, and who have moved with her when she changed addresses.

But she also received support from such professionals as Kathy Lago, resource and referral program manager at Solano Family and Children’s Services.

Lago disputed neighbors’ contentions that Claverie’s would be the third day care center on Cooper Drive. She said the closest licensed day care is a mile away; another is 1.6 miles from the area.

She said home day cares provide better supervision and teacher-children ratios than commercial day care centers, and she said Claverie’s approach is the type her agency likes to see operate in a city.

Becky Billing, representing Solano County Child Care and Development Planning Council, also commended Claverie’s “nurturing setting” and pursuit of continuing education in the field.

“She’s exactly what we’re trying to promote,” Billing said.

Staff attorney Laurie Furstenfeld of the Child Care Law Center wrote the Planning Commission as Claverie’s counsel, saying her client had informed the owners and property managers of the house, Armando and Ofelia Remigio and Grace Quinto, of her intent to open a day care center.

The Remigios bought the home in 2011. Claverie also introduced herself and explained her intent to Broome and McCrarey, the attorney wrote.

“No one mentioned any objection to her opening a large family care home at that time,” Furstenfeld wrote.

She said city notices had been given to those living within 500 feet of the house prior to Marks’s hearing.

California’s Legislature decided that home day care is so important that it crafted public policy to prohibit most restrictions against using single-family houses as family day care homes, preempting local zoning ordinances.

A municipality can apply four narrow standards: spacing and concentration, which Benicia doesn’t address; traffic control; parking; and noise control.

Furstenfeld wrote that many of the appellants’ arguments are baseless and outside city control, particularly those related to health and safety, liability and insurance, “a mere suggestion based on a San Jose policy for ‘child care centers,’” zoning and residency concerns and disclosure of conflict of interest on behalf of the city.

Claverie’s husband, James, said his wife’s day care business has always had “an open door policy with our neighbors,” offering to resolve any conflicts directly. He said his wife does two things well, child day care and foster mothering, a job she had previously — and should she be forced to end her day care business because of the timing of the couple’s impending move she would resume fostering troubled teens who have been convicted of crimes.

“We don’t need a permit for that,” he told the commission.

“This reminds me of four years ago,” Commissioner Rod Sherry said, referring to the Claveries’ previous application for the Gill Way home. In fact, some of the complaints — noise, parking and traffic — were similar then. But he noted no formal complaint was made once the Claveries moved to the new site.

He said he had driven down Cooper Drive. “It’s a very wide street,” he said. “Gill Way is a long, narrow street.”

Commissioner Stephen Young reminded the panel that certain other endeavors, such as homeless shelters and affordable housing, had met with such resistance that the state mandated their approval. “This is a similar situation,” he said.

Regarding construction work done by previous owners, he said, “Those concerns should have been raised four years ago, when we could have caught them.” Reminding the appellants that the city’s building inspectors were handling that matter, he said, “it happened four years ago, and you didn’t tell us. We’ve got to trust the building inspector.”

Commissioner Susan Cohen Grossman said she thought a day care operation would enhance property values, rather than lower them.

The Planning Commission’s decision can be appealed to the City Council within 10 business days, Million said.

In other matters, the commission started talking about concerns that the Benicia Industrial Park is becoming less “industrial.”

Since 1982, the city has allowed health, fitness and athletic companies to move into the park, including three fitness studios since January 2014. At some public hearings, speakers aired concerns over possible conflicts between recreational and industrial uses.

Economic Development Manager Mario Giuliani said the Industrial Park’s sales tax revenues have dropped 21 percent since 2009. At one time, it produced $1 million a quarter, or two-thirds of the $6 million in sales tax revenues generated in the city.

The recession saw vacancies rise, though that has changed and the park is 90 percent occupied, Giuliani said. The sales tax situation “won’t improve with vacancies,” but some of the spaces now are occupied by businesses that don’t produce sales tax revenue.

He surprised some by saying Valero Benicia Refinery, which does produce a large share of city revenue, is not among the larger sales tax sources because its products are marketed wholesale.

Instead, more sales tax comes from a Valero-branded gas station and accompanying convenience store, as well as three other gas stations in Benicia.

Cytomax, another Industrial Park wholesale company, makes Muscle Milk, Giuliani said. But sales tax is generated not by Cytomax but by retailers carrying its products.

Among the other top sources of sales tax are the city’s two supermarkets and one hardware store. But most of the other companies in the “top 25” sales tax generators are in the Industrial Park.

Sherry said some Industrial Park buildings aren’t large enough for conventional industrial companies, and are better suited for incubator businesses. But they aren’t clustered in a way that would isolate them from heavier industrial operations. “I haven’t come up with a solution,” he said. While he wasn’t sure it is a problem now, he advised monitoring so it didn’t become an issue in the future.

Jasmine Powell, an Industrial Park business owner who also leads the Benicia Industrial Park Association, said the city “is lucky to have the largest industrial park in Solano County.”

Despite poor roads and the lack of broadband Internet, the park is appealing because of its low rental prices, she said.

She said she appreciated that Benicia officials are beginning to turn their attention to the Industrial Park. But she also wants neighboring companies’ employees to understand the significance of the “ding” sound her forklifts make. “I want people focusing on industry,” she said. “I am concerned people will move in without that concern.”

She acknowledged that property owners want to keep their buildings rented. “You can’t blame them,” she said. “But it is important to keep it industrial.”

Another topic that concerned Young so much that he called for a vote to put it on the next meeting’s agenda was a review of the commission’s rules and procedures.

Young said he wants that matter addressed before the commission faces its next round of hearings on the use permit for the proposed Valero Crude by Rail Project that, if built, would allow the refinery to substitute delivery of North American crude oil by train for the barrels it currently gets from transoceanic tanker ships.

The latest revision of the Environmental Impact Report is expected to be released June 30, which after public review may be heard by the commission in August.

Million asked for Young to elaborate on any specific portion of the rules and procedures on which she should research, but Young told her he would raise those points once the item was part of a meeting agenda.

The topic was moved to the top of the panel’s work program, but Young’s motion failed to get a second.

During the next two years, the commission also will consider updates to the city’s zoning ordinance and encouraging new open spaces trails and community gardens as well continuing its discussion of Industrial Park uses.