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Although the board approved 119 new houses, those will be clustered around a previously approved project of 160 townhomes, which will bring a total of 279 units to the northern portion of the 138-acre property identified in the Orcutt Community Plan as Key Site 3.
The townhome project, with a density of 20 units per acre, was approved in 2009 but has yet to be constructed, and a subsequent proposal calling for 125 homes on large lots over the remainder of the property was denied in 2012.
At that time, the developer was advised to cluster the homes and create a large open space, resulting in the current project that the Planning Commission didn’t like primarily because it didn’t fit the character of the neighborhood.
But like the Planning Commission’s 4-1 vote recommending denial last October, the supervisors’ decision was not unanimous, with 4th District Supervisor Bob Nelson and 5th District Supervisor Steve Lavagnino voting “no” on the motion to approve the project.
“You want to be sympathetic to the applicant, but at the same time, my job is to protect my community,” said Nelson, an Orcutt resident whose district encompasses the SB Clark LLC development.
He said decisions by previous boards, a secondary access easement that conflicts with the one designated in the Orcutt Community Plan and high density housing in that location —roughly equal to the population of Los Alamos — created a difficult situation.
Site maps included in a Santa Barbara County Planning and Development Department report shows the SB Clark single-family housing project surrounding a previously approved development of townhomes. The map at right shows the public open space area with trails that will be dedicated to the county following its approval Tuesday by the Board of Supervisors.
“If I’m put in that tough position where, you know, I can’t comply with my Community Plan, I have to deny the project, ultimately,” Nelson said.
Lavagnino agreed with Nelson about density as well as other issues, but he also opposed the project because he said Nelson has to answer to his constituents.
“I think the board made a mistake, quite frankly, years ago, and we’ve got that hanging over our heads,” Lavagnino said. “That [multifamily housing] should have never been approved there.
“I don’t want to see both [projects] built, and I don’t feel like I have any control,” he added. “I think it’s just too much in one space — to put that many units on that piece of property there.”
Second District Supervisor Gregg Hart expressed confusion over how the county ended up with a project with so many conflicts, including specifying secondary access on Oakbrook Lane when the developer had an easement for it on Chancellor Street.
Santa Barbara County 4th District Supervisor Bob Nelson talks about the secondary access to the SB Clark housing project in this screenshot from the CSBTV livestream of the Board of Supervisors’ meeting Tuesday, when the project was approved on a 3-2 vote. Nelson voted “no.”
“Honestly, I’m baffled,” Hart said. “I don’t understand how the Community Plan created this conflict between those things. It seems like that’s what the Community Plan should have figured out, is how to get access to these parcels to have this development.
“I’m sympathetic to the applicant just in terms of the process of coming to the county with a much-less-dense project over many acres years ago … and the county and Planning Commission saying, ‘No, let’s cluster it and have this open space,’” he continued.
“And now there’s this open space and they can’t get approved because of access and, you know, it just feels like there‘s no path, and I don’t understand how we got here with this.”
Board Chair and 3rd District Supervisor Joan Hartmann agreed with Hart.
“The applicant has done, in good faith, what earlier boards asked and what we asked,” she said. “To deny this, to me, would seem like an act of bad faith.”
The approval came with a set of conditions, however, including that the developer negotiate a new primary access easement through Key Site 2 to Clark Avenue and build a 6-foot sound wall between the primary access road and Sunny Hills Mobile Home Park.
Other conditions include providing 15 to 20 additional public parking spaces near the trail head into the public open space and using decorative fencing and landscape screening around the retention basin located in the open space.
The developer also will be required to make a good-faith effort to obtain a secondary access easement along Oakbrook Lane by offering its residents financial compensation and, if an easement there is obtained, to improve the private road to county standards.
Photos: Knights of Columbus celebrates St. Patrick’s with horsepower in Orcutt
Community members in attendance dance and joy live music from Unfinished Business at the 9th Annual Knights of Columbus St Patrick’s Day Car Show.
A 1981 DMC DeLorean, tricked out to look like the time machine from the “Back to the Future” movie franchise, was an appropriate entry at the ninth annual Knights of Columbus St. Patrick’s Day Car Show that was titled “It’s About Time.”
Community members look at a classic 1955 Chevy at the 9th Annual Knights of Columbus St Patrick’s Day Car Show.
Community members check out various cars at the 9th Annual Knights of Columbus St Patrick’s Day Car Show.
Hundreds of people attended the ninth annual Knights of Columbus St. Patrick’s Day Car Show held Saturday at St. Louis de Montfort Church in Orcutt. The show, which hadn’t been held the last two years because of the pandemic, drew more than 150 vehicles of all types.
A line of Mercury Cougars show off their engines Saturday at the ninth annual Knights of Columbus St. Patrick’s Day Car Show in Orcutt to raise funds for scholarships and youth programs.
Foreign and American sports cars sat beside classic American iron and modern high-performance muscle cars Saturday at the ninth Annual Knights of Columbus St. Patrick’s Day Car Show in Orcutt.
A 1960 Messerschmitt KR200 may have been one of the rarest vehicles on display Saturday at the ninth annual Knights of Columbus St. Patrick’s Day Car Show in Orcutt.
Children and adults admire a 2006 Lamborghini Murcielago at the Knights of Columbus St Patrick’s Day Car Show.
After a 2 year absence due to the pandemic, the 9th Annual Knights of Columbus St Patrick’s Day Car Show returned to Orcutt on Saturday.
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