Twenty-three years ago, I began my voluntary service with the city of Lompoc. I always felt that it was every citizen’s duty to give something back to the community, and at the time there was a need for someone to serve on the Water Commission.
The city operates its own water utility, as well as all other so-called Enterprise Fund services such as wastewater, electric, and trash pickup. A few years later, the Water Commission was incorporated into what’s now known as the Utility Commission.
An opening occurred on the Planning Commission and I applied. I have been a commissioner for 16 years, and during that period we have held public hearings on many large and small projects.
In the first few years several “market rate” housing developments that appeared promising were brought to the commission for consideration and ultimately approved. Only two were ever built, and several large projects remain in limbo today.
In the meantime, several “low income” projects by nonprofit developers have been approved and built. These projects usually cost between $450 to $550 a square foot to build; at these prices you could construct high-end custom homes.
Over the years the cumulative total for low-income, multi-family units has reached 76 percent of the available housing stock. This is very discouraging considering that other communities’ average 5 percent, but at no time was either the commission or the council ever advised that this out-of-balance condition was occurring.
To make matters worse, now that they are aware of it, the state of California has required the city of Lompoc to absorb even more low-income units!
We have made some mistakes; most were associated with traffic and circulation. The intersection of Central Avenue and H Street has become severely congested, and each project we add to this general area only makes it worse. This congestion extends itself all the way from the Wye to Pine Avenue on weekdays.
However, the traffic studies included in staff reports always paint a rosy picture and indicate that “intersection improvements are planned to ease traffic flow.” So far it hasn’t happened, but it’s still included as a mitigation measure in every project’s Environmental Impact Report for the last 15 years.
Another mistake was to allow several boutique wineries to locate in an industrial park. The support services for this type of industry differ greatly from the type of businesses this light industrial area was intended to serve.
A major planning issue related to this industry was an inadequate consideration during the planning process of the cumulative load that 20-plus wine production facilities would place on the wastewater system, which is now frequently clogged by debris and undersized for the flow volume during the grape crushing season.
Early on I realized that both the general plan and zoning ordinance were inconsistent and way overdue for modernizing. Previous commissions had tried to list specific business types that would be allowed in each commercial district such as a furrier, business offices, shoe repair shops, and many others that just don’t exist anymore.
But as I discovered, government isn’t designed to do anything with any sort of urgency, so it has taken 13 years to finally overhaul both documents. Hundreds of hours of public hearings, tedious and sometimes contentious discussion, and numerous rewrites by both consultant and staff were required to complete these projects.
More than once, commission recommendations on the general plan were rejected by the City Council and returned for additional work. In the meantime, the folks on both the council and commission changed, and new ideas required more debate before the documents were ready to return to the council for adoption.
The zoning ordinance has taken the same path—changes of focus by the council, last-minute changes requested by one concerned citizen who had not attended any other meetings, and changes in state law that required overhaul of already completed sections of the plan.
Mayor Bob Lingl appointed me to the Planning Commission and decided not to run for re-election, so at the end of his term, I voluntarily resigned; my commitment was to him, and that commitment has ended with his retirement.
Having served for 16 years as a commissioner, I feel that it may be time to step aside and allow some new ideas to flow into the process. But finding someone willing to devote the time necessary to review lengthy and very technical staff reports and attend public hearings might be difficult.
This person must also accept the fact that timely results and the satisfaction associated with seeing the results of your effort are inconsistent with government service; for example, it will take several years to see if changes to the general plan and zoning ordinance produce the desired result.
It has been an interesting 23 years; we will have to see what the future holds.
Ron Fink is a resident of Lompoc. Send your thoughts to letters@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Nov 29 – Dec 6, 2018.