A new shopping center in Orcutt is moving forward after the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors unanimously denied an appeal filed against the county Planning Commission’s approval of the project.
The 50,000-square-foot Orcutt Gateway Retail Commercial Center, located on Clark Avenue near Highway 101 includes a grocery store, gas station, drive-through restaurant, and other commercial retail space.
The county Planning Commission approved a permit for the project during its Aug. 14 meeting. About one week later, a group called the Residents for Orcutt Sensible Growth appealed this decision and raised numerous concerns over how the development would affect traffic, air quality, and safety in the area.
In addition to raising concerns about this project, the group said in its appeal that it’s concerned about the cumulative effects this project and another development the county is reviewing will have on traffic patterns in the area.
This other project referenced is the proposed Orcutt Marketplace, which is also located on Clark Avenue just north of the Orcutt Gateway project. This potential development would include roughly 250,000 square feet of commercial space and a mixed-use residential development with 252 apartments. County planners are currently reviewing these plans.
In a staff report, county planners stated that an analysis was completed to measure how the build-out of all proposed developments on Clark Avenue would affect traffic in the area.
“The results of this study indicate that roadways are forecasted to carry volumes within their acceptable capacity ratings … and would therefore not generate significant cumulative impacts to study-area roadway segments,” the staff report states.
During the Nov. 19 meeting, attorney Finney Arnold, who represented the group, questioned the county’s ability to approve this project on an environmental impact review completed for the Orcutt Community Plan in 1997.
County staff found that no additional environmental review was required. Fourth District Supervisor Peter Adam acknowledged that the environmental impact review is 22 years old, but that the intended purpose for this land hasn’t changed since then.
“Everybody’s known that this is going to be a commercial parcel from 22 years ago and they spent scads of time on the [Orcutt Community Plan],” Adam said.
This article appears in Nov 21-28, 2019.