Environmental advocates and farmers called a recent local agency decision a victory for preserving agricultural land, while Lompoc city officials called it a loss for housing opportunities.
Lompoc submitted a proposal to annex 148 acres of farmland—in the county’s jurisdiction along Bailey Avenue—for residential development to the Santa Barbara Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO), a group of county and city officials that establishes policies and makes decisions that encourage “efficient urban development” while considering open space preservation and rules on annexation decisions, according to its website.
LAFCO denied the proposal 6-1 (with Commissioner and Lompoc Mayor Jenelle Osborne dissenting) during its April 6 meeting, to preserve prime agricultural land and recommend that the city look at potential infill development opportunities instead as opposed to urban sprawl, Environmental Defense Center Attorney Maggie Hall told the Sun.
“Basically the staff at LAFCO determined … the city’s proposal failed to promote infill development, jobs-housing balance, and it would convert prime farmland that would not achieve orderly growth,” Hall said. “This has been going on for a long time; the city of Lompoc has been trying to expand in this direction and annex, bring these properties within the city’s jurisdiction, with the goal to provide residential development and convert ag land.”
The Environmental Defense Center advocated on behalf of the Santa Barbara County Action Network to preserve these lands in order “to have a strong source of local agricultural production,” she said.
“It’s important to reduce sprawl and promote development within the city’s existing boundaries,” Hall said.
Lompoc City Manager Dean Albro said that infill development is not the type of housing that’s needed in Lompoc; rather, it needs medium- to low-density housing, and Lompoc has been trying to annex the Bailey Avenue property to do so since the ’90s.
“The only reason we’re keying in on that farmland is because we can’t produce the housing we need anymore. [A large] percentile is traveling to Santa Maria and Orcutt. We’re losing dollars to these areas while we’re trying to maintain our municipality,” Albro said.
Albro conducted a recent study of city employees who make more than $75,000 and found that only 42 percent of them live within Lompoc’s limits, and 58 percent live elsewhere and commute into the city for work, he said.
“As a city manager, I’m trying to develop a stronger community, and having my workforce leave means they take their tax dollars but also their mentorship. I want to see them mentor the young people in our community,” Albro said.
On top of this, the state allocated 2,248 housing units to Lompoc to be developed in its 2023-2035 Housing Element update—a state-required process that looks at housing needs every eight years—a significant jump from the previous cycle’s 525 units.
“We do have a couple of projects in the pipe, but once we’re done we’re really concerned because these housing numbers take years and in order to meet those … numbers, we have to start now,” Albro said.
Currently, Lompoc only develops about 11 houses a year, and it only had eight infill projects go through last year; at this pace, it would take the city 200 years to meet its Housing Element requirements, he said.
“We’re going to take the cards that are dealt to us to do our best to do infill work, work with [Vandenberg Space Force Base] to get housing,” he said. “We’re going to try and be a solution and work on infill.”
This article appears in Apr 13-23, 2023.
