|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Mountain View’s Planned Parenthood clinic, which shuttered last year to make way for a redevelopment project, has finally reopened after months of delays.
The clinic, now located at 2500 California St., reopened on Monday, Jan. 13, after shutting down its original location on San Antonio Road last year. It serves more than 8,000 patients each year and is the only Planned Parenthood center between San Jose and Redwood City.
The fate of Planned Parenthood’s Mountain View clinic hung in the balance starting in 2017, when the developer Greystar announced plans to demolish the old location on San Antonio Road and replace it with a 623-unit apartment complex. Santa Clara County officials scrambled to work with the clinic’s parent agency, Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, to find a suitable replacement site ahead of the pending closure.
Though best known for its reproductive health services, Mountain View’s Planned Parenthood clinic also provides primary care to thousands of low-income patients and members of the county’s Valley Health Plan. Advocates worried that losing the clinic would put a strain on neighboring health care providers like MayView Community Health Center, and would leave many residents with no option but the emergency room.
Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian, who spearheaded the effort to assist Planned Parenthood, said in a press release Wednesday that nonprofit clinics are particularly important in the North County area where there are no county-run health centers, leaving it up to outside agencies to fill in the gaps.
“We rely on a network of community health centers and nonprofits like Planned Parenthood to provide these essential services,” Simitian said.
Working with city staff, Planned Parenthood purchased the California Street property in March 2018 and shortly after received a permit to open a clinic at the site. The permit grants an exemption on requirements for parking, which is slightly below the 31 spaces required by city zoning.
With plenty of room to spare at the new site, Planned Parenthood last year inked a lease agreement with the county to carve out a portion of the clinic space for specialty services including pediatric dental care and the possibility of cardiology, orthopedics and urology.
Though originally slated to open around the time the San Antonio clinic shuttered, the new clinic was hampered by delays through the end of last year.
Great. An abortion clinic. More blight to add to the RV blight. Too bad they can’t relocate to Los Altos.
Kudos to elected officials like Simitian who helped keep this important resource open in our community. Their old building came down today so the timing is perfect.
Major thanks and kudos to Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian and his colleagues for so perfectly doing their jobs, helping to insure adequate health care services for the citizens of their city. This is what it looks like when government works!