Benicia City Council will hear an appeal of a Planning Commission decision to uphold a use permit for a large family day care at 580 Cooper Drive.

The matter first was heard in a lengthy March 10 zoning administrator hearing. Dan Marks, interim Community Development Director, took 14 days to digest testimony by several Cooper Drive residents who opposed the permit as well as those residents who supported the applicant, Kristi Claverie.

Claverie has been operating the day care at a rental home at 130 Gill Way, but needs to move because the house’s owner is getting a divorce and needs to move into that home.

Marks approved the permit March 24, but Paula Broome and Kathleen McCrarey, who would be the day care’s neighbors, appealed to the Planning Commission, which supported Marks’s decision and denied the appeal May 14.

McCrarey, this time joined by Yamilet Alfaro-Gunion, filed a new appeal of that decision May 29, citing building code violations and lack of construction permits for work performed in the home.

“These represent real and compelling reasons for true and thorough investigation and remediation prior to issuance of the day care permit,” their appeal read. “Addressing these safety concerns would minimize putting children in (harm’s) way.”

In testimony before the Planning Commission, neighbors said they had known for years that some construction had been done by a prior owner of the house.

In a report to the Council, Community Development Director Christina Ratcliffe wrote, “The state of California is very clear in its laws pertaining to large family day care facilities in that they must be treated the same as any other single-family residential home.”

She said California Government Code require a permit to be granted if a large family day care home complies with local ordinances that prescribe reasonable standards, restrictions, and requirements.”

Ratcliffe is recommending the Council support the use permit and deny the appeal.

She wrote that the points aired by the appellants aren’t pertinent to issuing the permit.

“The allegations of illegal construction do not rise to the level that would prevent the Council from making the required findings, especially with the multiple inspections by the city’s building inspection team,” she wrote.

She added that the current owner of the house, who bought it June 2011, had no knowledge of work done without permits, but those matters were addressed in the Planning Commission’s conditions of approval and are being handled separately by city employees.

The Council meeting will start at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the Council Chamber of City Hall, 250 East L St.

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