Panel Ponders Zoomars Plans Sans Dino
The petting zoo's plans now include a depiction of the old, wild West. Officials weren't exactly saying, "Yeehaw."
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Zoomars Petting Zoo moved ahead Tuesday with plans to revamp its offerings – sans Juan the dinosaur.
Last month, planning commissioners outright denied the now-famous Apatosaurus statue but said they wanted more details on the rest of the plans, which include a fossil dig area, shade structures and Native American huts.
Those plans came back to the San Juan Capistrano Planning Commission Tuesday night with a new addition of a Western town façade.
But it was as if Juan was still in the room. Zoomars owner Carolyn Franks said there’d be no reason to build the town front and fossil dig area if the City Council does not ultimately overrule the Planning Commission and let the dinosaur stay. A hearing is expected in April.
Commissioners said they weren’t in love with the Western façade, even though a painted version of one is now on the north end of the property.
“First it was the dinosaur, now a Western town,” said Jerry Nieblas, a long-time critic of Juan and president of the Capistrano Historical Alliance. “We were never a Western town. Gold mining, how does that represent San Juan Capistrano?”
Commission Chairman Robert Williams agreed, saying the Western town front seems tacked on.
“I don’t remember dinosaurs being around Western towns,” he said.
Franks said the only reason she proposed the façade was to respond to commissioners’ earlier requests to screen the dinosaur completely.
The commission voted 3-2, with Williams and Sheldon Cohen against, to conceptually approve the shade structures and Ajachemen village depiction – with plans to go to the Design Review Committee then back to the Planning Commission.
Approval of the Western façade and the fossil dig area would be contingent on what happens when the City Council takes up the issue of the dinosaur.
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