Extending the boundaries of the city of Lompoc west to Bailey Avenue has been a dream of politicians, property owners, and developers for several decades.
Going back over 50 years, we can see evidence on the extreme west side of town that all the intersections are four-way and dead end in farm fields; there are alleyways normally used for utility easements and access between residences on different streets, which separate houses from farm fields; and a sewer line that the city built along Bailey Avenue, which is a county farm road.
This indicates that developers, city planners, and politicians of the time believed that the city would expand west.
The 2030 general plan states that, “The city shall maintain a compact urban form by delineating an urban limit line [ULL], which establishes the ultimate edge of urban development within the city.” The ULL was established at Bailey Avenue to the west, however the general plan refers to the “Bailey area specific plan,” which was not adopted by the City Council.
The developer’s current 2016 annexation request proposes to build 624 dwellings and 125,000 square feet of commercial space on two parcels.
To date only one project, currently known as Briar Creek (approved in 2004) has been built on the north end of the Bailey Avenue corridor. To build it, the developer had to buy a 40-acre parcel to the south of the project to accommodate the extension of North Avenue for an orderly flow of traffic and provide emergency access/egress from it.
This property is located outside the city limits, and the county would only allow the construction of the road because it sits on prime agricultural land; it is part of the developer’s current 2016 annexation request. The other parcel is located between Olive Avenue and Ocean Avenue on property that once was used by the Bodger Seed Company.
In June of 2007, the city received a report titled “Bailey Avenue corridor specific plan constraints analysis” for a much larger project (2,700 homes and 200,000 square feet of commercial space).
Chief among the report’s concerns was the fact that the area proposed for development is on Class I prime soils; the Local Area Formation Commission (LAFCO), which is the approval authority for annexations, has consistently voted against any effort to annex this type of land and specifically against annexation of this land.
LAFCO policies state, “The loss of any primary agricultural soils should be balanced against other LAFCO policies and a LAFCO goal of conserving such lands,” and, “Annexation and development of existing vacant non-open space lands, and nonprime agricultural land within an agency’s sphere of influence is encouraged to occur prior to development outside of an existing sphere of influence.”
I checked other counties’ LAFCO policies, and the language was the same. So it’s not uncommon for LAFCO in most jurisdictions to object to expansion into primary agricultural soils.
Public safety services were also a concern; in 2007 the Lompoc Police Department had 51 sworn officers; today there are 44 authorized but only 37 of those positions are filled. The stated general plan goal is a three-minute response time to calls for service; in 2007, the analysis concluded that it would take five to six minutes for officers to arrive. I would imagine that response capability has worsened.
Fire service response is described this way in the general plan: “The first fire department response units capable of initiating effective incident intervention shall arrive at a priority emergency within six minutes 20 seconds from receipt of the call at the dispatch center, 90 percent of the time.”
Two fire stations serve this area: on the south,
Station 1, and on the north, Station 2. In order to meet the response times required by the general plan, Station 2 would have to be relocated to meet this requirement.
In 2016, the Lompoc City Council—despite the annexation concerns expressed in 2007 and at least two previous denials by LAFCO—directed the city manager to once again pursue the annexation of the Bailey Avenue corridor.
Let’s fast forward to November 2019. In anticipation of legal challenges, the council discussed transferring the effort from the Planning Department to the city attorney. The staff report chronicled the process so far, stating that during a recent meeting Paul Hood, LAFCO executive officer, “made a statement indicating he did not think LAFCO would approve the annexation.”
Councilman Dirk Starbuck asked a very reasonable question: “Why can Santa Maria annex prime agricultural land and Lompoc can’t?” No one in the room could answer that question, maybe it will be asked in the future during meetings with LAFCO.
The staff report also estimated a cost of between $92,500 to $160,000 for the city attorney to continue the negotiations. So that left an important question: Who is going to pay for this? The city or the developer?
The project developer agreed to pay the costs, so that cleared up that matter. When asked if there was a limit to what his client was willing to spend, he said this project has been in planning for more than a decade and “we are already in it for about $500,000 over the last 18 months, and hopefully we are nearing the end.” He also said his client didn’t intend to stop until a final decision is reached.
After a lengthy hearing, the council voted 5-0 to transfer the task to the city attorney, which also included a requirement for the developer to pay all costs.
Now we’ll see if LAFCO will agree to allow the annexation after objecting to it vigorously in the past. If it does, I will be surprised since they have repeatedly stated that the city should grow north, and this current expansion proposal appears to be contrary to their polices.
Ron Fink writes about Lompoc politics from Lompoc. Send comments through the editor at clanham@santamariasun.com or write a response for publication and email it to letters@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Dec 5-12, 2019.