Orcutt, don’t act so surprised. The county’s had its eye on your lovely open spaces for a while now, and all the Board of Supervisors did on May 3 was to approve what’s already been in the works.
That’s part of the message from 4th District Supervisor Bob Nelson as the supes were about to approve the county Housing Element, which will satisfy the state till 2031.
“This wasn’t something that happened overnight; this was two, three years in the making,” Nelson told the Sun. “I want to make sure that our community has a balanced approach to this.”
The county approved the rezoning of 10 sites in North County, out of a proposed 18. Seven of those sites are in Orcutt, including Key Site 11, one is in Santa Ynez, one in Cuyama, and the final one is a pending project in Vandenberg Village. This process is something the state makes counties do every eight years—Santa Barbara County’s newly approved Housing Element spans 2023-31—to accommodate the growing population.
While these changes are solely on paper for now, the Orcutt community is already envisioning the inevitable impacts of seven residential and mixed-use development sites throughout the area. Especially as more than 1,000 units are slated for along the Union Valley Parkway corridor alone.
And the aforementioned Key Site 11, which sits south of Clark Avenue and east of Orcutt Road, is zoned to accommodate 100 residential units and 57 mixed-use units. Resident Ryan Schwab, the current president of the Tree Amigos of Orcutt, said that he was “shocked” when he learned that Key Site 11 was part of the Housing Element.
“We’ve not only seen traffic back up from Clark to Bethany [Lane], we’ve seen it at times back up past the borders of Key Site 11,” he said.
His family has been fighting to keep that site free from development since 2007, when his daughters advocated to protect it. Despite getting support from various organizations, including the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Environmental Defense Center, and twice offering to buy the lot, it remains designated for development.
It’s not a total loss—the Schwab family has brought awareness and protection for a long season.
“The girls essentially protected the open space for the last 17 years,” Schwab said.
Besides, the development still may not actually see the light of day.
In the meantime, the county’s got to comply with the state. And in the pragmatic words of your supervisor, Orcutt, if you want a bit of control over the situation, you’ll want to actually act now.
“If you want to see that density lower, you might want to do it now. When we first did this, we thought 20 units per acre was crazy. Now we’re at 40 units per acre,” Nelson said. “At least it gets developed and there’s not the risk of it being a denser property in the future.”
Seven years from now, when the state’s got even more people to find housing for, any of those undeveloped spaces might be forced to hold even more units. Sixty units per acre? Eighty?
Take a page from our neighbors to the north and plan now while the planning’s good.
In Nipomo, the housing/environment give-and-take has been on full display with the Dana Reserve development, which the SLO County Board of Supervisors approved at the end of April.
As communities, we want to see our open space preserved, sure, but how do we accommodate housing needs? That sweet spot must be found.
The Canary is an elemental. Send ancient wisdom to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in May 9-19, 2024.
