A local Starbucks was denied the permits needed to add a drive-through after the project’s applicant doubled-down on their stance against altering the proposal.
The request was originally presented to the Santa Maria Planning Commission during its Nov. 17 meeting, where commissioners initially moved to deny the project proposed for a Starbucks on East Main Street in Santa Maria. But commissioners also agreed to save their final decision for a future meeting.
The item was revisited on Dec. 15. According to the meeting’s staff report, reasons for denial include findings that “the project would exacerbate the existing traffic congestion in the area,” which could “further impede” ambulances from reaching Marian Regional Medical Center, located nearby, and that a lack of opportunities for legal U-turns across from the Starbucks would result in unsafe driver behavior.
“Drivers choosing to make illegal and dangerous vehicular maneuvers to access the site results in additional broadside vehicular collisions on Main Street, which have historically occurred at this site,” the staff report stated.
During the Dec. 15 meeting, Greg Fick, a representative of the project’s applicant, Cadence Acquisition, criticized the findings as not supported by facts and refused to consider any significant adjustments to the proposal, which he described as the product of a year-long process.
“I’m still in shock that this decision was made,” Fick said during the meeting. “There was absolutely no evidence before you that this project was going to generate any more traffic [than the existing conditions]. … I’m not sure how we can arbitrarily make a finding that more traffic is generated because of this project.”
Fick argued that because of the applicant’s plan to remove two tenants from its property—Al Pho and Subway—to make room for the proposed drive-through and Starbucks alone, traffic congestion in the area would actually decrease. A traffic study in the proposal estimates that the site would attract about 700 fewer average trips from drivers on a daily basis.
“What’s the point of us creating a traffic study if it’s going to be completely ignored,” said Fick, who also criticized the Planning Commission for not consulting the project’s traffic engineer, who was in attendance at the Nov. 17 meeting.
“If there were any concerns, they [the traffic engineer] certainly should have been consulted. They were in the front row-—we mentioned twice that they were there, ready to answer any questions that were completely ignored that night,” Fick said.
Before voting on the item, the Planning Commission considered tabling the discussion once again—provided that the applicant pitch new ideas or make adjustments to the proposal that could resolve commissioners’ remaining concerns over the project’s potential impact on neighboring businesses and residential areas.
“We’re limited. … At the end of the day, there’s not much we can do,” as far as making substantial changes to the proposal, Fick said, adding that a couple of proposed resolutions (including widening the road on Main Street) were already ruled out.
“I haven’t seen anything here tonight to change my opinion from the last meeting,” Commissioner Tim Seifert said shortly after Fick’s response. “They’re [the applicant] either unwilling or can’t change their project—they’re not hearing, I guess, what we’re saying.”
The Planning Commission ultimately voted to deny the proposal, 4-0, with Commissioner Tom Lopez abstaining, as he was absent when the request was first heard at the Nov. 17 meeting.
This article appears in Dec 23-30, 2021.