Golden Inn & Village retroactive changes scheduled for hearing | Local News
Two Santa Ynez Valley projects and another in Gaviota affecting a wide area of the county are slated for public hearings Thursday before the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission.
The meeting is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. in Room 17 of the Engineering Building, 123 E. Anapamu St., Santa Barbara.
Commissioners are scheduled to hear a request to revise the development plan for the Golden Inn and Village in Santa Ynez, which is strongly opposed by neighbors, and a request to subdivide an existing 860-acre parcel north of Buellton into four parcels.
The commission will also hear a request from the county to amend the overlay designation for the Tajiguas Landfill in Gaviota, determine the revised Tajiguas Resource and Recovery Project conforms to the comprehensive plan and adopt an addendum, revision letter and errata to the environmental impact report.
The Golden Inn and Village hearing involves three applications filed in May and August to approve changes to the parking lot lights and the project description regarding site drainage, grading quantities and overall square footage of the project.
It also includes an addendum to the mitigated negative environmental declaration.
According to the staff, there are no new significant environmental impacts as a result of the changes, but opponents say they will attend he meeting to assert otherwise..
The parking lot lights and drainage have been of particular concern for nearby neighbors since the Golden Inn and Village, located at 890 Refugio Road, was completed and officially opened last year.
“Our neighborhood has been greatly impacted,” said Mark Brooks, who lives behind the project that provides low-income apartments for seniors, low-income family apartments and will eventually include a senior care and assisted living facility.
“For example, the project was approved to have 8-foot parking light poles, promising to have a low light impact to our neighborhood, but they put in 20-foot parking light poles, which engulfs our backyards and homes with light every night,” Brooks said.
“This past February when we had heavy downpours of rain, our properties flooded due to water runoff from the Golden Inn & Village,” he said.
Brooks also claimed the square footage of the project already exceeds the amount allowed in the approved plan, even though another phase remains to be built, which he said will result in even more impacts to the neighborhood.
He said he believes the county failed in monitoring and inspecting the project during construction, and the developer is now asking to amend the approved plans rather than correct the violations.
The hearing on the Skytt tentative parcel map involves a request from several branches of the Skytt family to subdivide an existing parcel of just over 860 acres into four parcels ranging in size from just over 203 acres to just under 250 acres.
According to staff, the project will result in significant environmental impacts that can be mitigated in the areas of aesthetics, visual resources, biological resources, cultural resources, geologic processes, water resources and flooding.
The project site is located just under 2 miles west of Avenue of Flags and a quarter-mile north of Highway 246.
In the hearing on the Tajiguas Landfill Comprehensive Plan amendment, the County Public Works Department’s Resource Recovery and Waste Management Division is seeking to amend the Waste Disposal Facility Overlay designation.
The request will help the county move forward on the Tajiguas Resource and Recovery Project that will process municipal solid waste, recyclables and organic materials to reduce greenhouse gas emissions equal to taking more than 22,000 passenger vehicles off the road annually, county officials said.
Officials said the project will process an estimated 155,000 tons of municipal solid waste and 35,000 tons of recyclables each year, increasing the county’s recycling rate to more than 85 percent and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 110,000 metric tons each year.
For more information on the Golden Inn & Village and the Skytt tentative tract map hearings, contact John Zorovich, supervising planner, at 934-6297. For more information on the Tajiguas Landfill hearing, contact Alex Tuttle, supervising planner, at 884-6844.
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