To make way for 60 apartments and 87 hotel rooms proposed for the Vandenberg Village area, Santa Barbara County needs to approve the removal of about 3 acres of chaparral—or chaparral in name only, 3rd District Planning Commissioner John Parke explained.
“I guess you could call it Burton Mesa Chaparral, but it really isn’t,” Parke said during the county Planning Commission’s July 30 meeting. “It’s a weed lot.”
County staff concluded that the site’s chaparral in question fits the definition of degraded chaparral. If things go according to plan for Constellation Land Development, the Lompoc-based developer will undertake certain habitat restoration efforts at the site as part of its project, split between long-term residential and hotel units.
That facet of the proposal—which includes new habitat creation and the removal of invasive plant species—was a big plus for Parke, who also expressed support for the project’s aim to house people with moderate incomes.
“For our low-income and very low-income, we have funding sources. We don’t have them at all in any way, shape, or form for moderate housing. … It has to come from private developers,” Parke said. “We really don’t have housing in this county for all the teachers, nurses, policemen, firemen, county planners.”
During the project applicant’s presentation, one slide noted the different employment areas within a 5-mile radius of the Vandenberg Village site, including Vandenberg Space Force Base, the Lompoc Valley Medical Center, Lompoc Penitentiary, and Allan Hancock College’s Lompoc campus.
Dennis Curran, Hancock’s vice president of finance and administration, spoke during public comment in support of the proposed development.
“One of the most pressing challenges we face—and I know this is not unique to us—is the ongoing shortage of affordable and accessible housing in our area,” Curran said. “It impacts our ability to recruit and retain talented educators and staff, many of whom are forced to look outside the region for housing. It also places a significant burden on our students who struggle to find stable housing, which in turn affects their academic performance and overall well-being.”
Curran called the project “a meaningful and much needed step in the right direction.”Â
Some public speakers opposed the proposal and its contemporary architectural design, including Vandenberg Village resident Meg Mersereau, who described the project as “a terrible eyesore [that] does not match the rest of the community.”
“It’s incompatible with the neighborhood,” Mersereau said. “It looks like outhouses and shanties, … piled up on each other.”Â
Commissioner Parke commented on the incompatibility concern shortly before the Planning Commission voted 4-0 (5th District Commissioner Vincent Martinez was absent) to move the project forward to the Board of Supervisors with its recommendation.
“Compatibility, … that can be a two-edged sword,” Parke said. “The location of this in the middle of so many things. … Sometimes it’s good to have a refreshing look, and I think the architecture here will be refreshing for the area.”
This article appears in Aug 7-17, 2025.
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