The Santa Maria Planning Commission wants to require an apartment building developer to fund a new bus turnout in the area but is waiting on a price tag.
Although city staff estimated that the turnout would cost between $40,000 and $50,000, commissioners opted to delay voting on the project until staff lands on a specific number.
During the Planning Commission’s Oct. 19 meeting, the project’s principal architect Scott Martin—whose client hopes to develop an 86-unit housing complex near the corner of Carmen Lane and South Blosser Road—described the condition as unfair but agreed with city staff that a new bus stop would benefit the development’s future residents as well as nearby residents.
“We’re very excited about the public bus drop-off; we think it’s an amenity for the whole area. But we’re swallowing hard trying to accept the full cost of it,” Martin said. “We would like to have the commission consider that the applicant’s happy to build it, but to 100 percent fund it seems to be putting an undue burden on this project. … That’s the only condition I think we had any challenge with or took any heartburn to. … [We’re] happy to build it, happy to accommodate it, just having a hard time saying we should pay for it all.”
The project applicant, Steve Simoulis, was present during the meeting to answer questions from the Planning Commission. Chair Robert Dickerson asked about the estimated cost for the development—known as Avante Apartments—as a whole, to which Simoulis replied that it could be anywhere between $20 million and $50 million.
“OK, so $20, $30, $40 million and you’re irritated at $40,000 or $50,000, right?” Dickerson said.
“It may sound like a small percentage, but to me, it’s an issue,” said Simoulis, who added that he doesn’t believe the $40,000 to $50,000 estimate takes into account the cost of establishing or reestablishing utilities, such as streetlights and fire hydrants, located on the proposed site of the bus turnout.
Planning Commissioner Maribel Aguilera-Hernandez asked Simoulis if there’s a percentage of the bus turnout funding he would be comfortable paying.
“Ten thousand dollars seems like the maximum I could even do for that,” Simoulis said.
“I think it is important to know the actual cost,” Aguilera-Hernandez said later, before motioning to revisit the development proposal on Nov. 16 with a specific cost for the bus turnout. The motion passed 4-0. Planning Commissioner Tim Seifert was absent.
This article appears in Oct 27 – Nov 3, 2022.
