While a dedicated emergency shelter doesn’t currently exist in Buellton, the option to build one was on the table for property owners in the city’s commercial districts before a recent ruling.
During its March 28 meeting, the Buellton City Council enacted an urgency ordinance to temporarily ban the development of emergency shelters in areas zoned general commercial and service commercial, while shortening the clearance procedure for potential builders at sites zoned industrial.
Prior to the decision, Planning Director Andrea Keefer told the City Council that keeping emergency shelters as an allowable land use for commercial zones doesn’t align with Buellton’s general plan goal of “harmonizing the city’s commitment to the unhoused with its need to thoughtfully develop the city’s commercial corridors.”
“It has become increasingly apparent that the preservation and enhancement of the existing commercial corridors in Buellton is vital for maintaining a healthy economic base and increasing the quality of life for residents,” Keefer said at the March 28 meeting. “Commercial corridors throughout the city, including the Avenue of the Flags specific plan area, require thoughtful and careful development.”
Keefer added that although “there does not appear to be an immediate need for an emergency shelter in Buellton, the trend in terms of the need for these types of facilities continues to go up throughout the state in general.”
Buellton’s 2023-31 housing element identified emergency shelters as “a permitted use without discretionary review” in the general commercial zone to comply with state law. The city is required to name at least one zone where shelters are allowed “by right,” City Attorney Greg Murphy explained at the March 28 meeting.
“The best way to think about ‘without discretionary review’ is like a single-family home in your general residential zone. … It’s just allowed, so they go right to the building permit,” Murphy said. “There’s a very quick zoning clearance to make sure where you plan to put it isn’t in a setback, you’re not on an easement where there’s a storm drain underneath—very quick.”
Buellton’s service commercial zone and industrial zone are among the zones where emergency shelters were described as allowable land uses with a conditional use permit (CUP) in the housing element, according to the staff report.
In its proposed urgency ordinance, staff recommended for the City Council to temporarily remove the CUP requirement in the industrial zone and designate it for emergency shelter developments unbeholden to discretionary review, while eliminating the possibility for shelters being developed in Buellton’s commercial zones with or without a CUP.
Murphy described this ordinance as a short-term solution while staff researches alternatives for a permanent fix.
“Right now, the point is to move the potential for shelters out of the [general commercial] zone, but there has to be a place where they’re allowed by right,” Murphy said before the ordinance passed 5-0. “This is the best thing we can do in the interim, from a legal standpoint.”
