Is the Los Olivos CSD Inadvertently Attracting Developers that Will Pave Over the SYV’s Open Spaces?
Los Olivos Residents and SYV Neighbors:
We’re all reading the same news and seeing the same changes that are already underway in the Valley, e.g., this recent article: Buttonwood Farm & Winery Sold to Hospitality and Ag Group, regarding the proposal to build 60 “Farm Stay Cottages” on a historic SYV estate located directly on the scenic Alamo Pintado Corridor.
Which came first: the sewer or the sprawl?
For the Los Olivos Community Services District — charged with devising an affordable and palatable solution to the tiny, historic township’s groundwater quality problem — it’s beginning to look less like a simple matter of “if you build it, they will come.” Rather, “they” (whoever they are) are already here and itching to break ground. Moreover, if we’re not careful, local residents could end up footing the bill for the infrastructure that is going to be necessary to support the current and future large-scale development.
Even those who support farm stays are wondering whether the farm stay program was expected (or intended) to allow developers to impose the demands of sixty (60!) cottages at Buttonwood on longtime residents, local roads, and other infrastructure. Beyond that, many point out that creating more jobs in the hospitality industry poses its own challenges when there is not enough housing for the existing workforce.
These planned and proposed development plays are not about providing housing inside our existing urban boundaries. This is about expansion.
One thing we know for certain is that old-fashioned, centralized, expandable sewer systems support the kind of development that is planned and, in some cases, already underway in this Valley.
If you build it, they will come.
1978 article about Solvang: “[S]ome say only a current building moratorium, which will be lifted after a sewer system is constructed, is keeping the town from springing to a commercially prominent place in the valley.”
Development by a Thousand Cuts
Perhaps most importantly in the very immediate term, these projects we are seeing and hearing about are not in line with the Santa Barbara County zoning laws or general plan so many residents want to believe we can rely on to preserve our agricultural lands, night sky, and open spaces.
So, why is the County Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) looking to change the very policies it adopted in support of its mission that includes “discouraging urban sprawl [and] preserving open-space and prime agricultural lands”? Cal. Gov’t Code Sec. 56301.
No LAFCO-ing Matter
LAFCO is poised to consider this Thursday (1:00 pm on Thursday, August 3, in Santa Maria) a seemingly “small” change to the policies that are supposed to protect our Valley, but this two-word change (from “because this” to “that will”) will have massive implications for the future of decisions regarding the extension of urban services across and into what we have always believed was protected agricultural land and open space:
This change would take us from a firm conclusion that the extension of urban services into Ag-zoned land promotes non-agricultural uses . . .
to a case-by-case determination (based on what criteria?) of whether the extension of urban services into Ag-Zoned land will promote non-agricultural uses.
