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iHow this transcript is madeUnGovr transcribes the official recording with automated speech-to-text, separates speakers by voice, and matches voices to the seated roster. Names and attributions are AI estimates and may contain errors.Verify any quote yourself: click anywhere in the transcript and the official video jumps to that exact moment, so you can check any quote against the recording.0:07 – 0:2223 turns
Good afternoon. I will call to order the April 2nd, 2026 meeting of the Santa Barbara Local Agency Formation Commission. Madam Clerk would you please call the roll?
Roll call — called by Unidentified speaker 2 · 1 under review
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Roll-call vote Passed 7–0 motion and a second. Vote by roll call.
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Agenda Discussionitems moved / continued / pulled — click to expand
for members of the public to speak on items that are not on the agenda. Madam Clerk, are there any requests to speak on items not on the agenda?
Chair Stark and Members of the Commission, there are no requests to speak under general
public comment.
No requests. That concludes public comment. Thank you. We're now brings us to the consent calendar Are there any commissioners that wish to pull any items that are on the consent calendar? Any members of the public that wish to pull an item from the consent calendar. I would call for a motion and a second for the balance of the cons for the consent calendar agenda.
Aye.
Roll-call vote Passed 6–0 motion and a second for the balance of the cons for the consent calendar agenda. Aye.
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Motion passes unanimously
Thank you the next item is business item number one will the clerk please read that item into the record
Chair Stark and members of the Commission, business item number one is to consider recommendations regarding the proposed budget for fiscal year 2026-2027. I think
you would ask our executive officer to report.
Thank You chair good afternoon commission we do have a brief PowerPoint presentation so we can get that up This is the time of year that we go through the two-step process of adopting a budget for fiscal year 26, 27. I don't see that PowerPoint up. All right, thank you. Pardon the interruption we had a computer go to sleep on us. So this is the proposed budget for fiscal year 26-27. The initial draft commission is an independent Commission. You get to establish by legislation the specific duties and objectives that you want to achieve. You've done that through work program that you've already approved beginning of this year and so now to fulfill that purpose and that work plan we're not presenting a budget for the Commission to take consideration of.
The government code requires that LAFCO conduct a public hearing consider a draft budget, we have to consider that draft budget No later than May 1st and then ultimately disseminate that out to our member agencies, the county each city and each independent special district for their review and comment. And then we'll return for a final adoption of the budget in that has to occur at least by June 15th.
For this year's budget is recommended that the budget be increased by just over $44,000 to a total of 680,280. The commission will all note to the Commission that we did submit a revised budget a week before We indicated that our pension program SB CSRS, they were able to finally get us an updated contribution rate. So we've modified the initial report that went out to incorporate this increase of the pension rate and these numbers now reflect What I'm presenting today, what that looks like. That just made a slight alteration to the overall budget and I'll explain how we've compensated for those throughout this budget. But essentially it's a small increase of just about 4%.
Largely those increases are threefold. One is the Commission authorized a 3.6% CPI for your executive officer in March to go into effect April 1. We've also adjusted for mid-year of this cycle, upcoming cycle 26-27 To fulfill the senior analyst position and analyst clerk positions that increased our salary and benefits line item by 13%. And every other year, the County Journal Fund Cost Allocation Plan usually presents us with an increase. It fluctuates every other year. Years it goes up, other years it goes down. This is a year in which it goes up and so again, it's up 101% from the prior year.
And then lastly here, the pension contribution rate increased up to 11.75. That's up from the prior year at 10.64. In order to help offset the cost associated with all of these increases, as we've indicated in the report and as we talked about it in prior years whenever the cost allocation plan typically goes up. We'd like to offset that to our members agency by using our reserve portion of our budget or contingency reserve In this case we've increased it to $25,000 this year slightly higher than we have in prior years.
Normally we've only gone up to $20,000 But this year we increased it by an additional $5,000. And there's a number of reasons for doing that. Generally that helps offset the member contribution expense. In addition we're asking that the Commission revise your reserve policy currently set at anywhere between 30 and 50% of our operating budget. We're asking that you increase that reserve policy up to 70%.
Whenever our fund balance exceeds 50%, which is the policy threshold, that money is automatically deducted and attributed to the net operating cost. And therefore all of our member agencies get a credit for any money at the end of the year that pushes our reserve above our reserve policy. At the end of this year, we're anticipating with the influx of two new applications. Obviously, we've now heard later in the agenda that the City of Goleta anticipates submitting an application initially wasn't contemplated. We have amended our budget to reflect that application cost and there's a second application for an annexation into Goleta Sanitation So we've offset what we think that new revenue is going to be.
That's gonna push our reserve to 51%. So anything over 50% will automatically receive a credit, so therefore we've already increased our reserve use to $25,000 Already contemplating that will drop us back down to our 50% margin. In order to avoid those increases and live so closely on the margin of reserve, we're asking that the Commission authorize up to 70% in that reserve policy. That'll provide us some more flexibility to be able to retain some more money in reserve should we need it in the future.
So this is a graphic comparing last year's budget with this year's budget. You can see there are increases both in salaries and benefits, there's a decrease in services and supplies status quo with our other charges which is our general use of water electricity trash and what have you related to our expenditures for our office use Totaling just over $700,000. Offsetting our contingency with that brings us to a total appropriations of $680,280 and that is the ultimate increase of about $44,000 or roughly 4% to our member agencies So with that, we are recommending that the commission adopt this draft proposed budget for 26-27. That we accept all public testimony.
That we distribute this draft budget out to our city special districts in the county and their representatives for the government code section and that we ultimately schedule a hearing for May 7th to adopt the final budget. And we're happy to answer any questions of the commission about this specific budget. That concludes our report.
Thank you, I would ask if there are any I have a question. Commissioner Nelson?
Yes, thank you Chair Stark as far as revenues are concerned we have that grant is that realized in this budget year?
Commissioner Nelson to the chair that is realized under the miscellaneous revenue category. You'll see that is typically higher than anticipated in previous years and that's largely due to the revenue stream for administering the grant
So that's going from $6,000 to $21,000? Correct. So about $15,000 additional revenue in grants? Correct. OK. Well I just wanted to ask my question. I have some comments. I don't know if anybody else has questions before I make some comments or feedback.
Go ahead.
All right. Yeah. Thank you for the presentation. Obviously, we'll talk about final adoption at the next meeting but I am just highlighting that it is a large increase of budget from year over year moving from the budget 45 to $700,000. You know it's a large percentage increase for our organization and has been for the last few years and I know that there's a lot of good work being done so that's reflected in part of that. I know where the staff is growing but I just want to be mindful the county is not you know in the scheme of things because we believe we pay about a third of the LAFCO costs but I just know that these costs end up hitting our special districts you know, more significantly. And so as this organization grows I know part of the reason why we're growing the staff is because there's some workload and some grants in place.
Just want to be mindful there that those dollars come in so that we can keep costs for especially if our special districts are often stressed don't have the same type of revenues that you might have in a city or county. So I just want to be a good steward of those funds And want to make sure that we're keeping an eye on that moving forward. I was also curious about, I do have a question about the staff salary increases and exactly what that's based on.
You could refresh that conversation. I know that your recommendation for yourself is CPI but for staff it is a
larger increase. There are no additional
increases
for staff. Under this budget.
I thought I saw
a 13% increase. Did I read that wrong? Adding, adding the position increased.
Okay so total
cost not just okay
yeah. I was thinking that was reflecting the entirety of that so thank you for the clarification there.
0:23 – 0:3733 turns
Any commissioners that have comments or questions?
I guess I would just add that having served on LAFCO for a while with our new executive officer, not so new anymore but with the new staff. I see what we hadn't been doing and I'm really impressed by the direction that we're going as a LAFCO and I think it does take more staff to do that. I think you've done a lot put a lot on your shoulders without much support but I really am glad to see the direction that we're going and I think it's worth, it's worth the increased salary for staff.
Thank you. I have a question. I think I know the answer to it. My understanding is that the Isle of Vista Community Services District has voted to commission a study of Isla Vista cityhood. Would I be correct in assuming that that is not part of our work program and we'd have to make some part of the adjustment if it did result in some form of a petition?
Chair Stark, that is correct. So whatever process they decide to move forward on cityhood ultimately would result in some sort of application component That application is not contemplated in this budget. So we're not anticipating any revenues related to that work. That would be on top of just because it takes a while to get through that process, that I wouldn't anticipate that an application would come before us within a year's time. I think they're still early working through that process and so that is correct that that is not contemplated here and does not reflect Thank
you. May I ask if there is any public comment on our budget?
Chair Stark and members of the Commission, there are no requests to speak on this item.
Thank you in that case I would call for a motion and a second We have a motion to adopt the final budget.
I'll move that we set the hearing for the adoption of the final budget on May 7th, staff recommendations A through C.
Hartman will second. I
have a motion and a second. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.
Roll-call vote Passed 5–0 motion and a second. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. · 1 under review
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Motion passes unanimously
Thank you. Chair if I may, staff would also like to know if the Commission is interested in increasing your reserve policy and so
if you could take- Is that not in the staff recommendations?
That's not in the staff recommendation
To that was the recommendation of increasing from 51% to 70%. Is that correct? Again, I think this impacts more of our smaller special districts in the county. So I'm in favor of it so I would I think at least for today we could because I would we adopt that next meeting
If you take a motion it would include with this and it'd be automatically increased. So if you take a motion to increase it to 70% that would conclude the need to take action.
I would ask our council do we need a separate motion on this?
So chairing commissioners, I'm a little concerned that this isn't specifically agendized so my recommendation would be to take this up at the next meeting
Thank you. Do we need a motion to agendize it for the next meeting? No. It will be done, thank you. The next item is business item number two would the clerk please read that item into the record
Chair Stark and members of the Commission, business item number two is to consider recommendations and set a hearing regarding adoptions of spheres of influence for the cities of Butelin, Carpinteria, Guadalupe, Goleta, Lompoc, Santa Barbara, Santa Maria, and Solvang.
Thank you. Executive officer to report.
Thank You chair will bring up a brief presentation for this my item as well Thank you. This is the long-awaited opportunity to talk about spheres of influence for our cities. As you know, we've been going through the service review process trying to contemplate what those look like and ultimately along the way we've been adopting spheres for many of the single service agencies largely the independent special districts in the county service areas and we deferred the conversation about city spheres of influence until that got concluded.
So we are now at an opportune time to now talk about those cities, their spheres as you recall late last year the Commission had asked that staff reach out to the cities and ask what their preferences were in context of the search reviews that we were preparing and the work that we were working on with the MOA development and the grant work And so staff has reached out to those agencies and included as part of this packet their comments and their request as part of this process.
And so we'll take an opportunity time to go over and highlight what those requests were from each of the eight cities, but wanted to provide some additional background here as we launch into this presentation. So as you're aware, the commission is required to adopt a sphere of influence for each of the cities. The government code that calls out for the commission to review and update those fears also says that has to be done every five years.
As we'll note in the next slide or so it has been now almost 10 years since the cities have adopted spheres of influence in many of these cases Many of different factors go into deciding how to establish a sphere of influence. Whether you're furthering the goals of orderly development, Efficient, effective services and affordable services in the delivery of those services. And all that factor information is what the service review report in itself contemplates. It tries to lay out the foundational information piece for the commission to understand In each city's circumstance, how do they measure up to these factors?
And as you know we took our time to focus on topics year after year and we eventually in five after the five-year cycle have developed all of the services that all of the cities provide and provided some information base for the commission to be able to make that decision. As a reminder, the sphere of influence is defined as a plan for the probable physical boundary and service area of the local agency. So that is what the boundary is. It's no more or no less of that doesn't give any jurisdiction any more or less authority or power to make decisions within that boundary.
It' s an area in which we've often liked to the engagement before marriage This is the area that the city is likely to contemplate some future development for. And so you're taking your job serious in deciding whether or not these cities, in particular have done enough work to get engaged for some future annexation down the road. Again, SOIs are just used as one factor for the Commission ultimately in making your decision when real reorganization proposals come forward. Reorganizations in this case are when we make actual boundary changes through the annexation process or detachment process or consolidation of some effort or larger action that the Commission makes As we all know, the territory must first be within the sphere of influence before you can actually annex that.
But that's not to say that joint applications to amend a sphere and annex can't come in at the same time and the Commission can take that as a whole as you move forward through the process. So with that in mind, in context again in January 2016 was when the Commission reaffirmed many of these cities, at least six of the cities. One month after that, the city of Carpinteria sphere in February of 16 was adopted and it has been even longer for the City of Goleta to have their sphere considered and amended and largely in 2009 that was a result of an application that ultimately came forward from the city And so these sphere determinations have been long coming for the Commission to make a decision. As we just read, the statute says every five years the Commission needs to update those spheres of influences and so that's a big factor in why staffs making its recommendation to reaffirm spheres for all eight cities at least we get a sphere up-to-date current within our cycle that were supposed to be in So in this context, the discussion for the Commission again is under the state, under the statute 56430.
It states that in order to prepare and update the sphere of influence Consistent with the other government code 56425, which is the ability to conduct service reviews that you do that and you make that part of that process. So we've now completed this service review were now following our statutory requirement to update the spheres of influence for the cities.
And that is the logic as to why it falls on this particular day in month that we're going to make this decision. No other factor factored into why staff brought it forward. We've been talking about completing the service review in an early part of 2026, bring something back for the commission. We obviously now know that other cities have contemplated new direction and that they want to move forward with and we'll talk about some of that in detail but their decision to move forward is their decision alone and the timing of their decision was up to them It had nothing to do with the factor as to why staff is bringing forward their recommendation that we're bringing forward today.
However, the decision to bring forth if there's a comment I'll take a comment there.
We have a comment from Commissioner Nels. Yeah chair Stark. I apologize for interrupting the presentation. Thank you of the opportunity So we aren't going to make a decision on any expansions of spirit sphere influence today is
that? Today is not an official recommendation to take action. It is to give staff direction so that we know that we have the proper documentation and be able to meet the proper noticing requirements, and so the direction is to tell us what you want us to do We'll make sure that when we return, all of that is aligned so that you can take a formal action. And the anticipation is that if you're willing to take staff recommendation, we would notice that 21 day notice and we can bring back to you in May.
Or we could guide you on
a process. Or you can guide us into a different process, tell us what boundaries you do want us to have for each of the cities and we'll come back to you with what we think it will take to make sure that we have all of the proper information before you in a timely way and properly notice it for some future date in the future. Okay thank you.
At at the risk of unduly prolonging so am I correct This gets continued to a future meeting.
This will get ultimately continued to a future meeting
and in the event that at that future meeting the Commission determines that it wants a different sphere of influence for one or more cities, it would get noticed again is that correct?
It potentially could be or the commission could date specifically continue the matter
you could can either continue the matter but you couldn't adopt Finally, a different sphere of influence than we put forward based on today's action. That seems to be what you said.
Well, we'll get to that when we get into the more specifics. I'll try to address that later in my presentation.
Fair enough. Thank you. Could I ask a question from Santa Barbara?
0:37 – 0:438 turns
We have we have a question from Santa Barbara. I think Supervisor or Commissioner Esebasu was that?
I'll take the promotion, thank you. The executive officer mentioned noticing is that going to be covered in your report or could you please explain what noticing will go out prior to addressing these issues for before the commission?
Commissioner Cerveza to the chair. Before we adopt a sphere of influence for any district or city, we are required to do it at minimum 21 day notice that 21 day notice has not been published today. So what we this package is presented before you is sort of a prelude, a precursor to get direction and to give your staff direction so that we can properly notice that and have adequate sequel findings for whatever change that you may direct your staff to do.
Thank you. And Commissioner Geyer has
a proposed hearing date May
My recommendation is for May. But my recommendation includes just reaffirming a status quo which allows us to quickly be able to turn this around and have an adequate CEQA finding.
Thank you, continue please.
Okay continuing on so again reminder in October of 25 the Commission directed staff to reach out We've done that specific to the reach out that we did ask was not only asked what best served their cities for future growth opportunities. The nuance here is that we wanted to make sure that the cities had existing journal plan policies and that they were consistent with the county's journal plan policies and LAFCO's mission and our local policies. So as a combined package, if you could submit that back to us, we would consider your recommended requests to amend your sphere of influence Four of those cities came back to us and said that they were okay with confirming, reaffirming their existing sphere of influence. That included the City of Carpinteria, the City of Guadalupe.
They both basically said we're good with a status quo adoption. The city of Solvang was agreeable to a status quo adoption But they also wanted the commission to consider expanding towards the West and potentially reducing their sphere in the North and East side. Looking at those alternate locations does require some further review and analysis from staff that hasn't been contemplated, and potentially some CEQA implications that we would want to make sure the Commission was aware of before you take action However, given that they were still agreeable to a status quo we're comfortable moving forward with them with staff's recommendation.
The City of Lompoc similarly said they would request a status quo at this time, but that they were considering embarking on an update to their general plan to the 2050 General Plan using the next 26-27 years to evaluate that. They've since city council has taken action to embark on that endeavor. And so they are going to be looking at future growth. And then they contemplated what that growth and what they were going to look at, and submitted a letter expressing what their interest was that has been included as part of your package and attachment.
And as a result of taking that action, members of the public expressed their concern with the city's direction and submitted an opposition letter to their interest of expansion. That has been included as part of your packet as well. And then lastly, as part of this subgroup of folks the City of Santa Barbara they reaffirmed what staff's recommendation has had been which is keep their status quo of their sphere and add one study area which was the Sunrise Hill that got contemplated as Study Area 5 when we were going through our search review.
So that's a block of these cities, five cities that said they would be agreeable to essentially a status quo sphere of influence adoption. Staffs recommendation includes a status quo for these five cities and we can bring back after a 21 day notice A resolution, as you've seen in the package. Those are draft resolutions we reaffirm those resolutions at a noticed hearing for May 7th and we can adopt those five spheres of influences.
0:43 – 0:5016 turns
Commissioner Guyer has a question. Out of curiosity when you add a study area is the study area LAFCO's jurisdiction or the entity that requests it?
Commissioner Geiger through the chair, it is both. So when we evaluate a study area through the service review, it can come from staffs recommendation to add an area Because we foresee some opportunity or some challenge, it can come from the city's request. It can come from the commissioner's request to specifically look at an area. So we have looked at throughout our service review a multitude of study areas for cities and special districts alike.
So
could you look at it like a study area as a precursor to an SOI change?
Yeah, that's exactly sort of what it is and staff ultimately makes kind of a recommendation within the service review. We give you some basic information about the area, the size, its location, some of the complexities to that And then ultimately make a recommendation whether we think it should be included or not included and that at the appropriate time, it comes to amend boundaries.
We would either further make that recommendation as part of a final resolution in this case for the city of Santa Barbara. We made the conclusion that study area 5 should be included into their sphere.
Commissioner Nelson?
Yes thank you. Does the change of SOI need a CEQA? I mean, is that part of that process? Yes. Okay. Expansion or reduction or just expansion?
It is a project under CEQAs and requires some form of CEQa analysis.
So any changes we make has to have some CEQAnalysis or we have to make an exemption? Correct. Okay but typically an exemption or a reduction Likely, you know might not have a environmental impact.
It depends on the size of the reduction right? It depends on the size of the expansion and reduction so if you're expanding a large area there's more potential for an impact versus a smaller area first and foremost it depends on the area specific What's going on in that area, what are the changes contemplated? It depends on whether or not there is an active project being proposed or not. So there is a number of factors that go into this CEQA analysis that we have to make sure we give the proper recommendation for the Commission to make and that's why My recommendation is what it is, barring whatever direction staff's comfortable with whatever direction the Commission wants to go whether you want to expand any cities largely as they foresee as a recommendation or reduce a sphere.
It's just a matter of timing of when we think we can get the proper documentation to bring something back to you so that when you do make that decision All the dots are made and all the T's are crossed so that the action you take is defendable.
So these spear of influences that are being requested by other outside entities, others or cities I mean 21 days would not be enough time to get a CEQA document done right? Potentially not
And that's the concern that we're raising at this hearing is it depends on kind of what you want us to do. How far out does that 21 days to get to Mace, to get to the May meeting may not be feasible but that doesn't mean you can still give us that direction and that we would then come back after we've had an ample time to give that 21 day notice.
And because a city or entity adopts a CEQA document doesn't mean that necessarily LAFCO adopts that same CEQA document right? That's correct. Okay, so both agencies would have the opportunity to adopt that or find potentially not make find it sufficient or not make the same statements of overriding consideration if there are areas that are unmitigatable?
If the city decided to become the lead agency and adopt a CEQA analysis, we become a responsible agency under that determination. We have to make similar conclusions if we agree with their analysis, we can use it. Right? If we disagree with that analysis... And when you have separate... We have to come up with a separate process to deal with that.
Continue.
Okay continue onward just so you have a graphic and a visual We just went over those five cities that agreed to essentially a status quo recommendation. This is what that boundary would look like. This is the city of Carpinteria, their only sphere if I can get the pointer to it here is this small neighborhood in this upper quadrant. That is their sphere boundary very small area The City of Guadalupe's sphere is coterminous with their city boundary. They have no sphere beyond their city, that doesn't mean they don't have a sphere. Their sphere is coterminous. It's the same area as their city boundary.
The City of Solvang, as you can see, is small area to the west And then the larger area up into the stretching out over into Santa Ynez CSD. And largely that area was developed because there is a known number of sewer service concerns with septic systems and ultimately those properties would likely need to get on some public sewer system. And it was undecided as to whether it should be the city or Santa Ynez, and so the boundaries have kind of overlapped one another And so we're suggesting that we still have that same sewer concerns and that we should contemplate it should be able to go.
As you know, the City of Solvang and Santa Ynez CST share in a treatment plant. So that they both operate a treatment, but they both have rights to capacity of that treatment plan. So either way it's going to the same plant whether it becomes city or CST annexation. Chair Stark I have a question in Santa
Barbara. Go ahead. Possibly two questions. My first one is if there is a property or an area that is not currently in a sphere of influence, that's unincorporated and it's going through environmental review If that environmental review is completed and then subsequently a sphere is proposed and adopted, that includes that area. Does that have any impact on the CEQA analysis that was just done?
Does it trigger anything?
0:50 – 0:5612 turns
Commissioner Kariakou through the chair It does in the sense that LAFCO is a responsible agency under that CEQA analysis. And so if an EIR was prepared, we would evaluate that EIR and make sure that it considered all of the characteristics that it needed to be contemplated to adopt a sphere boundary change. And if it did then we would accept that document If it included class one impacts, then the commission would be obligated to adopt and consider its own overriding considerations which we have done on a number of projects.
And so independently, the commission has to take its own CEQA action. Oftentimes we rely on another agency that has prepared an adequate CEQAs document and we've just followed suit with that analysis but it doesn't mean we have to.
Thank you.
Continue
Mr. Pritzker
Okay, City of Lompoc's request. So City of Lompoc obviously has had great foresight as to where it wants to grow its boundary. It wants to take in some large territory of a sphere and it's going to evaluate these through their journal plan update process over the next couple of years. Here are the areas in which they are evaluating their sphere Largely their sphere includes much smaller territory. It's small areas here to the south and then some territory up over here along the eastern side is largely what is the current sphere for the city.
As you can see, there it is. Here's the area up in the kind of northeast Go back. Here's this area to the south, small area another even further south and then this small area hatched in this area so that is their current sphere of influence so if you adopted status quo those areas would remain in the city's sphere of influence and lastly this is City of Santa Barbara They have larger sphere that's towards the west and northern of their boundaries, and the entirety of Mission Canyon.
And then largely the area that's being added this study area five if I can get my cursor over there slowly is this small contemplated area right here. So, this is a white space that's in nobody's sphere of influence. Adjacent further to the east is Montecito Water District and much of the infrastructure out there is pretty convoluted. Some of it's water district pipes some of its city pipes and so this one area is an area that The Water District and the Sanitation District, quite frankly could not reach or serve.
And there are properties that potentially will need water and sewer in the future. And so the logical boundary was for this city to be able to be the service provider. And that's largely why we've recommended expanding the City of Santa Barbara Sphere
Is that what you refer to as the Sunrise
Hill? That is what we refer to as the Sunrise Hill Study Area 5. That red blob. Moving into the three cities that wanted expansion of their sphere, as part of this process. First is the City of Buellton The City of Buelton is requesting their sphere to align with their voter initiative measure for their urban growth boundary that was passed in this last election. And you can see on the exhibit on the left, there are three areas area site A, B and C This is the area they feel would set them up for future development opportunities should they need come next arena cycle.
Cycle 7, we don't have yet that cycle 6 runs until 2031. Cycle 7 will run beyond that period for an eight-year period And the city wanted to fashion themselves in a position that would support potential growth should they need it. Not saying they needed it in that seventh cycle, but should they need it this would be the area that they would look towards.
Just so I'm clear, when you say cycle 7 is that in the regional housing needs allocation? Is that what you
mean? That is the regional housing needs allocations.
Cycle 6 is the one we...
We're currently in cycle six and that runs until 2031. Cycle seven will be coming next.
Thank you.
0:56 – 1:1011 turns
The City of Santa Maria they also are wrapping up their comprehensive review of their general plan At the conclusion of that, while we went through our service review areas in red are the areas that they contemplated and spoke to us. We became study areas within our evaluation and we considered those. Ultimately, we concluded that it would best serve the commission to not include those areas into the sphere and allow the city to seek an application to amend and annex that territory after they concluded their sphere of influence or after they concluded their general plan update process.
And through that process, they may consider additional areas beyond this. We don't want to hold them to just these areas. They may want trade off of other areas. Pardon me. The city will have to decide where growth may occur. What that means is they may be approached by landowners or developers to pursue other areas that they hadn't initially contemplated and that may make sense to them, and they may say okay well let's not pursue these red areas let's go pursue this new area so it makes more sense for them.
So that's the trade-off that they'll have to contemplate as they move forward And lastly is the City of Goleta. As we know, the city council has expressed interest in revising their general plan which includes essentially these three areas that's Glen Annie Golf Course, the South Patterson area and the St. Augustine Church area and the guard sites that became three sites And they are pursuing an application to submit to LAFCO to amend their sphere of influence.
And so the recommendation is to allow them to continue to pursue that application.
Commissioner Guyer, a question?
Do you currently have an application from the City of Gloucester for an SOI change?
Commissioner Guyer through the chair we currently do not have an application.
Commissioner Hardman
Yeah, this comes as a little bit of a surprise to me. The county in the city of Goleta did at LAFCO's request have a meeting and we ultimately are very much in favor of this but we don't want it immediately because we the county have now gone a long way with the developers and just switch jurisdictions would be very difficult So we wanted to get the development for the sixth arena cycle permitted and underway before we actually changed. I guess maybe this fear doesn't matter as much as an annexation, but maybe you could respond to that.
Yeah Commissioner Hartman through the chair. That's exactly right if the sphere was to be amended that wouldn't change The process that the projects that have been submitted into the county. They would still go through the county as I indicated, this fear doesn't grant the city anymore authorities to do anything greater but does essentially set the stage for future annexations essentially we amend their sphere We are signifying to them that we are anticipating some annexation down the road.
That likely would occur post decisions on those applications they're submitted and I think that's what the city to my understanding is contemplating that those applications would run its course through the county and that they are just setting themselves up for some future request. Yeah,
okay well I that's good this can be very confusing I think for people so I think we have to take a lot of care in explaining it
Exactly. And that's and largely, that's why I set this particular hearing up because we are dealing with very diverse approaches to amending spheres And I didn't want to put the commission in a position that today is the day you're going to have to take an action. I wanted to give you kind of a cursory look of what things look like, get some direction and then proceed in what would be a logical fashion.
In every city could be different. They could all be lumped together and in an action or we can take them as they come forward. And then I'll conclude before I get to my final recommendation That is the City's request, obviously. Ultimately staffs recommendation is that the Commission approve option one in our report. Option one was to essentially set a hearing date to approve resolutions that reaffirmed at least the five cities that said they wanted their cities, their spheres to be reaffirmed plus the city of Santa Barbara was getting that addition.
And then secondly Based on discussion, deliberation, public feedback. Ultimately you can tell us what to do with the other three cities. Staff's recommendation is to once again reaffirm those same sphere boundaries and largely that is so that we at least establish consistency with adopting spheres getting back on our five-year cycle That doesn't prohibit the cities that want to pursue an application. We would take that up as a standalone action, that would amend ultimately their sphere when that application came forward it would give that city an opportunity to do the proper planning, proper CEQA analysis and that would take that requirement off of staff your staff it would shift the lead agency to the cities And ultimately, what I wanted to kind of provide as information for the Commission to consider is when you're looking at spheres of influences and how to adopt those and where to adopt those.
There's kind of three approaches that can be considered. And I'll go through each of those. The first approach is probably the most idyllic approach, and that is the city has contemplated general plan policies for an area for a particular territory. Those policies set out very clearly the expectations in the directions that the city foresees that property Moving forward through a process as it becomes annexed into their city, right? Ideally that tells everybody what the plan is. How are they going to execute that? Where all these services coming from?
That's top tier approach. If you can do that, that gives the Commission confidence. We're essentially saying under that engagement proposal, you've told us exactly what you want to do. It aligns with our mission and our policies aligned. We agree with your policies and therefore it makes logical sense to amend your sphere. Barring that approach, the second approach is to say largely kind of what I'm hearing City of Goleta doing is saying on their word they are going to do this. They are going to go through the journal plan similar to what Lompoc's doing. We're going through a journal plan process.
We are going to make these changes so on good faith and in good trust you can wheel that to them and say we can amend your sphere We trust you're going to execute these changes and they're gonna tell you ultimately what those changes are going to be, and the reasons for those changes. That's sort of some middle tier approach where you have built trust with those communities.
You know they're gonna come through with that. And at the end of the day, the test is When they come forward with an annexation, you're going to go back and say well we trusted you to make these changes to your general plan. Did you make them? If the city says we had good intentions but we never got around to it then that annexation application becomes much more of an obstacle for them to get through the process because now they don't have the support documentation to do that. That doesn't mean you can't amend their sphere without it It all comes down to how much trust do we have with these communities to do what they say they're going to do.
You are obviously putting out a reason why you're amending their sphere and having an expectation for them to meet If they meet it, great. If they don't then you have an ultimate decision to make to not approve some annexation down the road and then lastly the third kind of approach is to just defer all that to a concurrent application When they want to come forward with the change, they can amend their sphere and annex their property at the same time. And that gives you all of that information that you need in one hearing to contemplate whether or not you want to amend that sphere and annex that territory. So there's three different approaches. There's not one better than the other per se.
Other than I think when we all have the information before us, that's an ideal approach. That is a lot of extra work that cities have to go through to document all of that and oftentimes can be time-consuming and things can change along the way for which they may want to ask for a sphere change sort in that middle tier to say you know Trust we're going to do these things and we're building trust with LAFCO to show that we are going to do these things.
And so, that's what I'll conclude with again my recommendation stays the same it hasn't changed since last year when i said my recommendation is to just amend the spheres let's get through this process we're working with all of the cities Through our grant program, we're going to try and bring back more information as we move forward through that process. We're still willing to sit at the table and go through an MOA phase if parties are willing to go through that process. And ultimately the MOA by juxtaposition sort of substitutes that general plan So rather than go through a general plan update and change all your policies, you can go through an MOA process that essentially does the same thing. It lays out all the groundwork, all of the expectations of what you're expecting to do as these properties become opportunities to expand.
And essentially, the county and the cities are agreeing to that because that groundwork has been laid. And that's the added trust that's being built along that process. But I understand that that process in itself has its own complications to get through and may not be the right tool for everybody to use but that opportunity is out there we're working on that or working on the grant And then we're ultimately going to see applications come forward and will process those applications as they come forward.
What I'd like to see this commission do is get current on our spheres knowing that when cycle 7 through the regional housing need allocation comes in around 2030 31, we have another opportunity 5 years from now it's going to be 2031 to look at fears of influence again What are those new allocation targets suggesting for the cities? Can they accommodate those or not? Are they looking at growth beyond their current city boundaries or not and there's opportune time to do that work.
And so, that's ultimately why I'm making my recommendation. There's any further questions about that. I think it's an opportune time to turn it over to the cities and the public so that they can comment on what their
requests are. Commissioner Geyer has a comment or question, I have two questions. And we have one in Santa Barbara. Okay several questions Commissioner Geyer.
Okay, I understand the idea of trust but You really should first base on facts. And when I look back at the minutes of the last in 2009, when the last sphere for Goleta was approved, reading from the minutes said the commission also confirmed the existing policy of including land in the eastern Goleta Valley and the city of Goleta's sphere of influence only in conjunction with a concurrent proposal for annexation to the territory of the city. So it seems like that was direction in 2009, and we've been definitely at this process for a long period of time.
And I'd like to see it wrapped up myself. It seems like we have direction already based off of the previous MSR.
1:10 – 1:169 turns
I would agree that commission at the time set an expectation for the city under that consideration. Not to necessarily put another argument out there but you know it has been quite some time since 2009, there are a number of different factors and facts that have come forward that may suggest that this Commission may see things differently And I think it's important to understand whether or not a sphere is going to be amended. Or not as we indicated, I concur an application is one of you know paths that they can take.
Yeah, it seems like a logical way to me anyway is too. Commissioner Hartman.
Thank you, I think I have three points I'd like to make and the first one I think piggybacks on what Commissioner Geier had to say in the three approaches to the SOI that you outlined. The second one you mentioned trust and what comes to my mind is if you don't You trust some and you don't trust others. That's not a very, I mean if we said that it really is we're substituting a memorandum of agreement that outlines terms in place of the general plan policies That at least gets us to more factual basis, but I'm really uncomfortable with the way we're framing that although I appreciate how you're trying to move us to clarify our expectations earlier so that we can understand.
The second point I want to make is that we may think an SOI doesn't have It's not that it doesn't have a real-world impact, but it does. And it does to developers the minute something comes into a sphere of influence and I've seen this developers see that services are coming that it can be urban development and it increases the price of the land so And finally, I guess this is a question not a comment. Our SALC grant is another way that we're going to try to get more information into this process especially what the cities are thinking and I guess then too I live in Buellton so I'll say this They did a very big sphere of influence study that would have expanded the city by sixfold. What we see now in their proposal is very modest and very well thought out with a lot of community input in that election process so whereas, we're just going to reaffirm for now I think they're the furthest along
Thank you. Did we have a question from our comment from Santa Barbara?
Why, yes.
Commissioner Kiriakou I believe.
Yes. Yeah thank you there's been a fair amount of discussion about Galita and I may have some insights on that matter. So a couple things first of all I want to go back to one of the questions that Commissioner Hartman was asking earlier And it was about timing and the arena cycle. So we are already three years into the sixth cycle of arena where we're quickly approaching that halfway mark. And so I guess my first question is about timing. Is there a ticking clock?
that statutorily starts when an application is received from a jurisdiction to expand its sphere. In other words, if a jurisdiction like Goleta submits its application does it have to be acted on within 30 days 60 days 90 days a year three years? Can you just kind of get some clarification into this conversation about that aspect of timing?
Commissioner Kariakou to the Chair. When an application is submitted for a sphere of influence, once staff has determined that adequate CEQA has been completed it must be presented to the Commission within 70 days.
Okay. You're a pretty experienced fellow in these matters Mr., and I'm just wondering what is a typical a typical process to do all that SQL work, all that pre-zoning, all that general plan work setting aside the notion of an MOA here for the moment just to kind of keep things clean. You know does that tend to be a single year process? A multiyear process?
1:16 – 1:2517 turns
Commissioner Kariyaka who's the chair if I may clarify are you asking What LAFCO time is for that process or are you asking
The city time. How long it takes a city to go through all the rigmarole to get itself ready to actually come?
Yeah, it just depends on the extent of the area that you're wanting to contemplate. I'll put it in real context for you and the city of Goleta. I think you're fortunate in a sense that much of the areas that you are considering were considered by the county through their housing element program so they have an EIR. I think the city has a general plan EIR And so there's opportunities to utilize existing CEQA analysis that might just need to be supplemented, to contemplate a few of the areas that may not have been covered or refresh to a current time frame of 2026 and any new thresholds that might have been developed.
And so I don't know that the City of Goleta's case if it's a significant amount of time to get through that CEQA process.
I hear that. I guess my next question goes back to something that you said, Mr. Prater. You kind of alluded back to that old religion language of don't get engaged if you don't want to get married and that was kind of the dominant philosophy at LAFCO for many years. So I guess my question to you is does a city need to do annexation concurrent with a sphere in order to try and advance land use planning in that area and assert itself of its future planning rights, keeping in mind that the City of Goleta General Plan was approved I think in 2006. I didn't even have an iPhone then A long time ago, the city's been looking at bringing this area more into the city's future planning for a long time. And you know it's now 2026. It's been 20 years.
So is it possible to do these things one step at a time or kind of to Mr. Guyer's point? Do you have to kind of do it all together because there was a finding made in 2009?
Commissioner Kariakou, the Chair. I think there's an opportunity to do these one at a time and there's not an obligation to the city to develop its future goals and expectations outside of your current city in these areas regardless as to whether the areas get added to your sphere or not The city has an opportunity to talk about what it wants to see on its fringe and use that as an opportunity to engage with the county when applications come forward under a county application, to be part of that process. So whether these areas are in your sphere or not I think as long as you have information and solid policy basis within your documents that brings you to the table, you can utilize that.
Okay so a city like Goleta could come to LAFCO within a relatively expeditious period of time be in a position to be under consideration for expanding the sphere But in reality, be a long ways out from a future annexation effort amending the general plan wholly to acquire another area and then proceeding to either vote of the people or whatever the LAFCO process would be for that annexation depending upon the area in question.
Commissioner Carrico, that is true. That could
happen. Okay. So I guess just to kind of bring it all home, I think Commissioner Hartman's point is well taken. It really is at the end of the day about trust and I would just hope that saying the same things outdoors in a public meeting that were said behind closed doors in a more informal meeting can kind of show that trust because, you know, I for my part and we have a city of Goleta representative here who can speak to this. But, you know, I think just one perspective here is I my sense is there's not a rush to a rush to acquisition, a rush to annexation here. I think we're talking about a situation where you have a jurisdiction that's been waiting very patiently and at times not so patiently but waiting for a long time nonetheless to try and have more of a say in matters that are right on its fringe and are served by Goleta Roads and Goleta Area Services.
So I'm hopeful that the trust that seems to be being built can continue Thank you.
Am I correct Commissioner Nelson did you have any further questions?
Yeah, I had a further question and I just wanted to also just comment on some of the what was said by some my colleagues up here and first of all this for the public you know make sure you wear sunscreen anyway my facial bandage today You know, I just really applaud the City of Goleta for having conversations with the county. It sounds like that's where that trust is built is actually having conversations and I think that should be a model for the county in the city to start to come together because it's a lot better when they're working together towards the same goals than to have their own agendas and so that's how trust is built through conversations and that's where it needs to start and I applaud you Mr. Prather for encouraging Goleta to do that with With the county.
I'm going to kind of go in the way back time machine, you know, we went 2009 one of my issues on sphere of influence has been the issue around the city of Santa Maria sphere of influence or orchid that's been his existence since 1978. And I think I've said up here a few times and definitely last year that I probably wouldn't be able to reaffirm Those the current sphere of influence with that in there in the future, and I think I've made that well known. That's a concern of mine, and I know I've asked you to reach out to city on is there any plans there? Have you heard anything back from the City of Santa Maria on any plans for that sphere of influence?
What you heard, what we heard from the city is what we submitted in their attachment which is that they are still going through their general plan update and the conclusion of that I think is where they want to then focus in on where they think their sphere should be.
Okay so in that process because I know that's a document already developed at this point right or at least there's a draft of that I
think they're getting real close to wrapping up.
Do you know if there's any general plan policies, expectations plans for the Orchid area in that document?
I did not personally go through that document as of yet to know.
Okay all right so I'm hoping that whatever we do today we don't reaffirm that yet until we have a better understanding of that piece because I think that You know, some of these things that have been set up for a long time. You know if there's not a plan then we should probably you know remove the sphere of influence and so That's why I've been bringing that up for quite some time and again 1978 48 years ago at this point sounds like it might be time to adjust that accordingly and so I'd be looking to And whatever motion we make to give the opportunity to potentially reduce the spirit of influence there in the city center on the south side if they're not making any meaningful efforts to have policies or plans to address that.
Commissioner
Petino Yes, the City of Santa Maria will have the general plan come before May 7th. I think it is at our May meeting and then we will be discussing anything on the annexation but we're not looking at going south.
1:25 – 1:316 turns
Thank you. I have two questions one of his general and Clarifying, is my understanding correct that if we reaffirm a sphere of influence what we're essentially doing is getting us LAFCO off the hook to review this every five years and place the burden on the cities to come forward with something specific. That's what it sounded like to me. That's my general question, not a specific question.
It has to do with the Bailey Avenue corridor in Lompoc. My understanding is that there was a lengthy hearing in which the City of Lompoc proposed to amend their sphere of influence to include some parcels along the Bailey Avenue corridor and my question is are those particular parcels involved in the action that's before us today?
Chair Stark, to address your answer on those two questions. Yes, we are asking that we adopt these fears and reaffirm them largely to bring us back into compliance with our five-year cycle. So that resets us in good faith that we are amending spheres appropriately and then we are giving the opportunity for the cities to come forward with applications that they think would be workable for them and that we would independently evaluate those and bring those items forward for a decision. And that would in turn amend the sphere yet again, an opportunity to mend it yet again.
And then to the question on the Bailey Avenue corridor, that is currently outside of the city's sphere of influence and so readopting their sphere would continue to keep that outside of their sphere.
So those particular parcels are not before us today? They are not. Thank you. That answered my question which I think brings us to soliciting comments from members of the public
Chair Stark and members of the Commission, there is a public comment from Peter Imhoff, the Planning Director of the City of Goleta in Santa Barbara.
I'll recognize Mr. Imhoff.
Thank you very much. Good afternoon chair and commissioners. Peter Imhof, Planning Director for the City of Goleta. Nice to see all of you. The, I just am here to confirm that the Goleta City Council did on February 17th take action to direct Goleta planning staff to submit a sphere of influence application and also to bring back a general plan amendment initiation that would reflect the materials that Executive Officer Prater showed you and that are attached to the staff report. And Goleta staff is working on that diligently now, and we do expect to submit an application very soon.
I anticipate that as part of the city's action on the general plan amendment That we would take a CEQA action it would likely be either an exemption or addendum to our EIR That would simply reflect the sphere change in the service area boundary change the sphere itself really just addresses land use decisions that were already made by the county as part of its housing element. So there would be no land use change that would result from the city's action, really just a sphere change and consistent with what Commissioners Hartman and Kiriakou shared.
There is no imminent desire or urgency to move forward with an annexation. This is really just a preliminary step that we think is logical, that's consistent with the principles of orderly development and essential services to reflect those again those existing land use changes so any land use entitlements that happened within the area of the proposed sphere would happen under the county's jurisdiction Not under the city and any action to later annex that would come at a much later date.
And I also just want to confirm that representatives of both the county and the city which included Commissioners Hartman and Kiriakou as well as one other member of the Board of Supervisors in our Goleta City Council along with the County Administrator and the Goleta City Manager We did meet back in November to talk about this. My impression was that there was broad agreement from those present, that this made sense, that this was again logical and a necessary next step in so far as it because of the configuration of the areas within the sphere being adjacent to the existing Goleta jurisdictional boundary would be served eventually by Goleta services. So that's the intent here.
And I would further share that there from that meeting, it did not seem like there was a need for a memorandum of agreement. This was really just a straightforward boundary change that could take place fairly quickly. So Goleta City staff is moving forward on that and we do expect We'll be bringing materials back to our council very soon, likely certainly within this calendar year and likely by summer to affect those actions. And that we will be submitting the SPHERE application in due course also within next couple months to Mr. Prater and the LAFCO. And I'm happy to answer any questions that the commission may have.
1:31 – 1:3913 turns
Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Imhoff? Thank you, Commissioner Hartman.
I did have a comment are we done with public comment?
We are back to the Commission. I believe that in public two more we have two more public comments. I recognize Ms. Tamora but I don't know if she's next in the queue.
Yeah we have Lori Tamora representing City of Lompoc
Good afternoon, my name is Lori Tamora. I'm here today as a contract planner for the City of Lombok. I've been on contract with them for about a year and a half now working on long-range planning efforts. Last year we spent quite a bit of time going through the last municipal service report and uncovered that we have quite a few areas that we serve as outside areas.
And so, we've been working with Mr. Prater to correct the record on those areas. We intend most of those areas are in the sphere of influence and we intend to apply for annexation applications for those areas that have already been approved for outside area service agreements. We are also initiating, as of earlier this year, our update to the general plan. We are now calling it the 2050 General Plan Update.
It will include our land use element and other elements that need updating. We are projecting those out for four RHNA cycles. So we're looking at a population increase of right now we're probably right at about 40,000. We're looking at between 50 and 55,000 in the next 25 years and those numbers are assigned to us by SB CAG including their 2050 plan as well as they're now drafting up their 2060 plan so we're relying on those numbers uh to guide the planning effort that If possible, could you bring up the City of Lompoc's exhibit that we submitted?
Oops sorry. There's a couple of items I'd like to point out in this exhibit that reflects what I was talking about and Okay I'll keep going. In regards to the Bailey Corridor question that came up, this current city's general plan shows the Bailey corridor in their urban limit line area so it is already anticipated for development to go in that direction It's not a sphere of influence and that has been one of the contentions that have been over the years is what is an urban limit line versus what is a sphere of influence.
So we are moving forward with our general plan update that will include, as you can see over on the left hand side of the city, I hate these things. This is the Bailey Corridor area and that is going to be in our general plan update effort. We also have a number of pieces, a number of properties that are in the service areas that we are going to apply for annexation and then the amazing thing in doing this research is that Vandenberg Village is served by the City of Lompoc The sewer is connected to our sewer plant and so we are looking at is this something that should be brought into the City of Lompoc.
Also, we do also serve Vandenberg Space Force Base and their effluent comes to our plant. There are other extensions of service in some of these other areas that do come into the city and so as part of this effort of looking Holistically on what the city currently serves outside of their current city's boundaries, we want to make sure we study that and have an environmental impact report that looks at everything.
The important thing to know is that we do have an application right now in process right at this location. That's the Badger Meadows project for 340 units. It's a builder's remedy project We are looking at the annex to the city of We are also participating with the Salk process and I think there's a lot of moving pieces here, and we're trying to keep on top of it all.
The last request I'd like to make is in regards to the recommendation that was brought forth in option one item one B, we would like you to move Lompoc down to the B category because we are updating our general plan and we are updating our sphere or updating all of the planning efforts so move us down to that category because the city has made a substantial financial commitment to do this long-range planning effort.
I'm available for any questions if you have any.
Actually, I have a question for Mr. Prater about what you just said and that is what is the practical effect of moving LOMPIC from the A category to the B category? Does it make things easier better promote trust but verify say trust you gotta you gotta say verify
For all intents and purposes, commission moving to the B category that does not change anything for the city of Lompoc. Option 1B is still to reaffirm essentially the remainder of those that didn't agree to a status quo, so that we could maintain our adoption of spheres within a reasonable time frame. So essentially they would be reaffirmed having their same sphere of influence.
Essentially it's allowing them to consider continuing to apply for an SOI and annexation application which they always have anyways in any city does anyways.
So if I was to look at the practical effect of it, it gives us a tad more flexibility is that
I think it just acknowledges that they will likely submit an application in the future.
It seems like a realistic reasonable request.
Thank you very much.
Do we have any other public comment?
Yes, Chair Stark and members of the Commission we have another public comment from Claire Weinman representing Grower Shipper SBCLD.
1:39 – 1:4512 turns
Proceed good afternoon
Good afternoon, my name is Claire Weinman with the Grower Shipper Association of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. What I want to communicate today is that this topic is important to the association and this topic is important to agriculture especially in Lompoc and Santa Maria. We hope that the commission takes the time that's needed as a complex and cascading issue not just for the immediate parcels that are being considered but those around them too.
We share the sentiment expressed in some of the conversation today that we hope that you take the time that you need and that you don't draw the map first and then ask questions later, and that we also don't want to hold up areas that aren't controversial with those that are. We appreciate LAFCO's thoughtful and measured approach and look to it to apply in this important process We'd also like to confirm the importance of having ample notice to stakeholders and dialogue on these important topics.
Thank you for your consideration, and we look forward to engaging in this process as it moves forward. Thank you.
Thank you. That brings us back to the Commission, and I suppose it would be appropriate to ask for comments further comments and if possible a motion. Commissioner Hartman.
So I did have a comment, my earlier comments said that spheres of influence do have impacts they aren't just lines on paper. I wanted to just refer to the discussions between Goleta and the county what those yielded I think is another impact and at least at the political level We're now engaging when we're engaging with developers, at least in the Glen Annie area. We're also bringing in elected leaders from Goleta so that they so that we all have a chance to talk about things together and I think that's very productive. I don't actually know what's happening at the staff level.
I know that we are working on traffic issues together but but I think that's another area where informal Discussions are very helpful and maybe our MOAs or however we move forward with LAFCO, I think that's something to encourage.
Thank you Commissioner Mosby
just This trust word, it's interesting here. Going back to the Bailey Corridor aspect, one of the reasons why that's lined up is and a lot of people don't realize is there's sewer line going down Bailey Corridor or the city's sewer line and adjacent properties and I'm talking in the late 50s early 60s were charged sewer assessments and they all did that anticipating the trust The annexation was coming through. In fact, before the roller coaster of the mole project actually brought in trainloads of lumber to build out that project there when things were a little easier to be embraced and brought in.
That lumber then went elsewhere as things went backwards and we saw things reverse So I think it's important to understand the trust and the amount of money these people paid in anticipation that Bodger Project has been on the slate for decades. Decades in anticipated annexations and movement Just think of all those people which is now probably in the millions of dollars they were charged for that sewer assessment to running that $2 million sewer line. I don't even know if the city's even allowed to work on that sewer line going down, Bailey being its outside sphere of influence.
It's in an urban limit line which the county and nobody else seems to recognize. It was anticipated movement to do that so trust is very interesting.
Indeed it is. Commissioner Guyer, you've got your eyebrows raised and you're late on us.
Well I think that there's for me what's really important right now is to get our cycle done. I mean we've been at this for a long period of time and it seems like there's a lot of question. There's a lot of question about trust. There's a lot of question about who wants what to satisfy ARENA numbers I want to satisfy our requirement to get these MSRs done, and I feel that's the most important element.
And it seems like option one and two would actually A and B would accomplish the same thing. Just adopt the SOIs as they are, and as soon as you receive an application have a hearing and change it, amend the SOI but otherwise for me it's put in the cart before the horse.
Was that a motion? I'll second it.
Excuse me sorry we have one more public comment on Zoom Mike Gardner would like to speak.
Zoom away.
Thank you, glad to talk to the commission my name is Mike Garner I'm the general manager for Mission Hill CSD and previously 40 years with Vandenberg Village CSD. My question is these spheres influence how is that going to affect these two great running CSD's? And when we talk about trust what gets me is we saw the letter from the city of La Polke And there's been no contact with us about any of this.
And I think it's greatly going to affect these two CSDs and the residents, and what do they have to say on this? If I could have somebody answer on that. Thank you.
1:45 – 1:5124 turns
Mr. Prater, is there an answer? I don't think the CSDs are before us.
Yeah so the recommendation is to retain the City of Lompoc's sphere of influence and so that would have essentially no effect on the two CSDs but I think having gone through this hearing or this meeting in hearing what the city is wanting to evaluate in their general plan update should put those two CSDs in the conversation with the city so that they can have meaningful discussion and analysis as they go through their update.
But there's no change to their sphere from what I'm hearing. Therefore, we're not really contemplating at this time that the city would be annexing those CSTs into the future.
May I ask a question of the maker of the motion? Yes. Does your motion include the suggestion that Ms. Tamora made on behalf of the City of Lompoc to move them from an A to a B or not?
No
It does
not. Under our alternatives to the Commission's action,
option one. Thank you. That takes Mr. Zoonmaker and seconder agree? I
have a question about the motion as well or further discussion about the motion.
Yes.
Hopefully again, I want to better understand what the functional difference of having Lompoc under A or B is because both are reaffirmed So it doesn't seem like there's really any. There really is no difference. Okay, I just want to clarify make sure I understood that correctly. So that's my first question. My second question is you know I've been up here for the last couple years talking about this engagement between the City of Santa Maria and Orchid Mayor is talking that there's likely not you know to be that on their plans as of just a few weeks or three or four weeks from now So we reaffirm it today, and then we bring it back in a month or two to formalize the city's plans. I'm just trying to figure that out because it seems really weird to affirm something and then come back potentially just a month or two later to reduce the sphere of influence seeing that the city would have no plans for that area.
Okay. Correct, so as it's been motioned and moved you're giving direction to essentially reaffirm all eight cities spheres of influence for which we will set a 21-day notice an adequate CEQA analysis for that action to take place given its simplicity we think we can return May 7th for that decision At that May 7th, you'll make a final decision on the city's spheres of influence.
If you are consistent with the action you're asking us to take or the direction you're asking us to take and readopt the spheres of influence post that decision an application can either come forward from a city to amend their sphere in which they would go through the process Or the commission could direct staff to reconsider any particular city's sphere of influence under the light of new information.
And we can readopt a different boundary for that city.
It seems silly to be so close to the end of a process.
Having them that
close information just on the cut, I mean it might be the 5th and then the 7th. And so you know that's why I'm hesitant because I don't want to begin holding another process. I mean more bureaucracy frustrates everybody and so we're so close there. I guess I'm trying to figure out how to do that maybe you prepare maybe direction is to come back to us in that hearing with both those options available for our Our commission based on what the decision the city center is at their general plan. I'm hearing that maybe that might be a
that is the discussion amongst the commissioners if they want to amend their motion and their second to give that direction.
Commissioner guy or
well, I would assume that if we set the hearing date for May and you get some new information we could either continue certain cities and affirm certain cities or just reaffirm all of them. And when we get an actual application for an SOI change, amend the SOI.
There's two processes though right where it's going through an SI through an application or a reaffirmation process. And part of this reaffirmation process I've been asking all along what is the city's plans so that we could we could reaffirm it with the knowledge? Again those plans aren't coming to fruition because it seems like there is no plans for that. So I would like, I think our reaffirming process should reflect that. I don't think we should make go through the whole entire bureaucracy and the process of an application when we're already there and this is what we're doing right
now. For me, the way I look at it is if you don't have an application in hand, you don't have anything. Well, but we're taking action on something that you don''t have. But we're reaffirming something
that doesn't exist
either? No, we're re-affirming something that does exist. It doesn't.
So again... The
existing SOI.
The existing SOI has no general plan policies that reflect that, and that's my frustration and that's why I was asking a year ago when we began this process bring that information forward so we can make a decision if there was policies in place that would reflect that then it's a different discussion there are no policies in place for that sphere of influence within that city. The policy is the existing MSR And again, there's no policies of the process of the city annexing that area. And so again to make us go through a whole application process seems like a lot of extra work when we're already reaffirming right now. And again, that was something that I saw this is not late hit. I've been bringing this up for a couple of years now with Mr.
Prather and he said hey we get to we get to a place where we get a chance to reaffirm and it's the discretion of this commission to reaffirm or make alterations.
1:51 – 2:0710 turns
Chair if I may insert myself into this discussion which is a good discussion to have Commissioner Guyer The line of thought is correct. You're giving direction outside of new information or the timing of new information, we would come back to reaffirm the City of Santa Maria's fear along with the other cities and on May 7th if you decide that the city's action does not want reaffirmation of their boundary, you can pull that one off the list and not take action on that city and not adopt that resolution. And give new direction.
Thank you. You have that
opportunity. I'm comfortable with motion with that in mind.
Are we good? I would suggest and now's the time for the clerk to call the roll on the motion. And I think everybody understands it's the motion as presented by our executive officer. Parts A and B.
Roll-call vote Passed 6–1 motion with that in mind. Are we good? I would suggest and now's the time for the clerk to call the roll
Show transcript
Motion passes, one no and seven yeses. Six yeses.
Thank you. The next item is Information Item Number One would the clerk please read that into the record.
Chair Stark and members of the Commission, information item number one is to receive and file a status report from the Los Alivos CSD regarding the wastewater treatment project.
Thank you in my understanding this is an information item we are noticed to receive and file the report.
Correct this is a receiving file an update from the Los Alivos CSD So the commission granted the district an extension back in April. That extension runs until April of 2027, so they still have another year in which they're operating under that extension And essentially, that extension was to allow the district to complete their Prop 218 assessment decision.
And so the district is now here providing an update as part of that. extension, the commission did ask for periodic updates of the Commission and we deemed it necessary to hear from the district at this time with still having a year out from their ultimate two-year extension. And so what we have who we have here is Guy Savage their general manager and their president Julie Kennedy to essentially give the Commission an update on where they stand as of today and what they think their next year looks like for them. So with that, I'll turn it over to Julie and Guy. Thank you.
Thank you. And my understanding is we do have public comment on this so we should hear from the Commission first and then from the public comment.
Thank you very much for your time. Yes, as Mr. Prater noted we have one more year on our extension and nevertheless we've been making really good progress as we're moving forward and just going to give you probably for a lot of you this information is redundant but district as it's been defined LAFCO actually set the boundary for us. We have 384 parcels And a little over 10% of that is commercial, zoned commercial with the remainder as residential. Our annual budget which is just roughly a quarter of a million dollars comes from a special assessment that each of the property owners pay And there's a little bit of a diagram if you will, lot size and the number of parcels that we have in each. The thing to really note is that most of the parcels in the district are these small lots Oops, sorry.
Sorry I went the wrong way. Sorry. All right very quickly wastewater process there's three parts you got to collect it you got to treat it and you gotta dispose of it so seems simple but it's definitely not. So the community has expressed a lot of has been we've had a lot of good community interaction we've really looked at in depth the fluent as one means of collection gravity which is your traditional sewer We've looked at treatment from a local option, local treatment option. Do we disperse it via a percolation field etc., or do we go to say a solvang? The disposal, we looked at ponds injection wells. Do we reuse the water etc.? So we really you know looked at we've definitely looked at pretty much the majority of the options that are available to us especially given the community district boundary size The board unanimously voted to look at a system or solution that would first evaluate both affluent and collection at a 30% design level, and that we would do the treatment and disposal in conjunction with City of Solvang.
And as noted on the slide here, there were concerns about sending a pipeline down to Solvang. We've had extensive exhaustive interaction not only with the district's legal counsel but also the county's legal counsel on this issue And so really the bottom line is that the district, Los Livos, is not required to allow a connection onto that pipeline. There are some other parameters within the design that would help us minimize any kind of potential growth impact And then also there's the capacity that we would contract with the City of Solving that would influence the growth factor.
So, as we said, Board unanimously voted to pursue a 30% design looking at the collection system of both Affluent and STEP to see if one would be more suitable for our community or not. So this information is relatively new. We just received the 30% design report from Wallace Group and as you can see, I mean it's isn't this is not anything unlike what we expected certainly the construction costs for gravity. It's much higher than it would be for a fluent or step But you can see that the costs over a 30-year life cycle are roughly ish the same. The cost for residence and commercial, on the other hand, definitely go up with this step because there's more ongoing maintenance and operation that each property owner would have to maintain.
So then, like I say you can see the cost estimates for total over a 30 year period for both residential and community. So again it's there it's this is pretty much what we had expected down the line. As noted before too, we have been doing monitoring of the five wells within the community and thank you to EHS for helping with some of the cost on that. We did find that Wells 2, 3 & 4 which Ironically are also, or coincidentally I should say are located most of the small lots have the higher levels of groundwater nitrate concentration.
And you can see in the charts there the red is way over the limit so essentially all of the wells are testing over the limit but some in red are significantly over the limit. So there's been a lot of question about the whole groundwater and you know do we actually have a problem or not. So it's important to note that there are three factors that are influencing this, just what has the district boundary that was drawn one is that we do have a lot of small lots in fact out of the 379 right now only it's like five or seven lots would actually technically be So we have a lot of the lots within Los Olivos are very small and really probably not really big enough to even have the septic that they've got right now.
The third is that we're, oh god I just lost my train of thought. I'm sorry. And the third is, oh yeah, the extensive septic use and throughout the community which is contributing to the nitrate level. So our plan is to continue to test because you know it's always good to have the data and should we be successful in implementing a solution obviously we want to see these numbers go down So here's our big hurdle, funding. And I know in the past Tom Fahyram when he was president came to you and said our biggest liability was funding. I was here last year and I said this is our biggest hurdle is funding.
Right now we need about one and a half million to complete the planning documents that work that Wallace's group is doing to get us to a 90% design. So I want to be really clear this district has not been sitting on its hands in terms of trying to find funding. We are scouring everywhere, in fact we had a meeting this morning with RSG and RCAC about funding and how could they help us with finding some of the resources that we need to actually just even get the planning work done.
We have also discussed with Supervisor Hartman's office about could we Receive some of that TOT tax that's coming into the community. We have about $3 million a year coming in annually just from the TOT tax. We thought that would be a great way, that money is generated in the community could it stay in the community and benefit the community? So we're looking at that and then we're also talking with the state about some direct budget assistance We did apply for the federal WERDA grant through Carbajal's office.
So that looks like that could be on the table, but we do have to work with the So again, funding is our absolute biggest hurdle. So here's some of the kind of a hard reality here. I think it's also worthy to note that right now are based on our annual budget that we receive based on the special assessment that property owners are paying would take us roughly 10 years to get enough money together that we could actually start construction and what happens in that time frame is I'm going to talk a little bit about the cost of doing this. We're talking about $4,800 per parcel of delay costs that we would in this community would incur the longer it takes for us to actually get the solution in place.
The other thing that I wanted I'm not entirely, I'm definitely not in favor of going to the community and saying okay everybody's gonna need to pay up more so we can make this happen. This is a shared responsibility it also benefits the community at large. In the district boundary less than 1,000 population but on every average weekend we have 3,000 people coming through this community and right now there's Some port-a-potties and a lot of bushes that get used for public facilities.
I think if we as a community and at large really want Los Olivos to be a special place, this is something that we really should invest in. All right I'm off my soapbox on that one. But like you said, the really big problem for us is we don't have a way to raise revenue. That's just fundamental whether it's sales tax or the TOT tax. We just simply don't have that capability so getting this to the finish line in other words construction well even the 90% design this is going to be an enormous lift and we are really honestly at a financial cliff if we can't find the funding I just want to make a couple of points. The first one is that we are looking at not only to finish the 90% design, but more importantly assistance on this construction cost is right now simply too prohibitive for the property owners in the district I just want to say on a positive note, I think there's a great opportunity not only for the community but for the county.
This is our single best time to get this done at a cost that's going to be cost effective for everybody involved and everybody has an interest in making this happen. All right so what's up next we are going to have a public workshop on June 3rd where we're going to discuss the recent Wallace group report and solicit feedback from the community about affluent versus gravity as a collection system again remember the board did vote unanimously for the treatment and disposal with Solvang. So we are not going to be building a local treatment plant to handle that part of the solution.
If we get the funding to complete the design, we can move to a Prop 218 vote right now this is this is a little bit And so we have a 90% design is going to be very difficult to come up with the proper assessment and property owners are going to have to have that information before they are going to vote on the Prop 218. So again, like I said, that's where we're at a really critical juncture here at the moment.
All right, so that's it. Money, money, money.
2:07 – 2:1224 turns
Thank you. Commissioner questions or comments or do you have anything to add?
Just in case there's a question that needs
answering.
For some who don't know, would you explain the effluent gravity distinction?
So effluent is a tank that's on the property and both solids and liquids would flow into this tank. It uses biology to turn up The goods, the affluent would be carted off. That that would be taken out of the tank and that would be sent to Solvang for treatment and disposal. The solids would remain on site and churn kind of like a little bit like a traditional septic but the technology is clearly more advanced than your vanilla septic system.
Gravity or sewer, that's what we all know. You flush and forget it goes down the drain through a pipe down the street and then gets treated and disposed of through City of Solvang.
Thank you.
I
have a couple more questions but I'm curious how much public comment do we have? Just one um so the Santa Ynez CSD what conveyance do they have to Solvang?
Commissioner Hartman through the chair, Guy Savage the general manager. So they use traditional gravity fed collection systems send it down a unique pipe that connects right near the Solvang treatment plant we of course would connect to Solvangs collection system.
Yeah well where does it what street does it go down from Santa Ynez is it down 246 or?
Yeah through the chair exactly down 246. It takes a slightly different path when it gets to within the city of Solvang's boundaries but it ends up at the same pump station before going across the creek to the treatment plant.
And I see we have Jason Johnson from our environmental health, I wondered if he'd want to say a few things about how hard you're working to try to find funding for this?
Thought you were going to get off easy, did ya?
Well if you came dressed up in a suit looking so good.
The ties were a couple minutes anyway.
Commissioner Hartman through the chair this project's been going on I mean the issue was identified in 1975. The most recent portion of the project has been early 2000s? I think early 2000s is when 2010 was the last County report, but since then the CSD was formed and we've been working towards sewer. Current state policy for this area than minimum parcel size is two acres or two and a half acres obviously majority are less than two acres Through the LAMP we're allowed to have parcels down to one acre if there's sufficient area for dispersal. Dispersal is the biggest issue related to septic on these parcels both the groundwater plus just the small parcel sizes.
So the status quo can't continue?
Correct, the status quo puts us at risk of having the regional board None of the groundwater results meet basin plan objectives, so they all exceed. The MCL with the red number was those above 10 that's a drinking water standard not the basin plan standard. So yeah this as quo puts the county, the residents at risk of having to get either a permit for basically the county losing the ability to permit septic systems in the area if they so chose or requiring Basically through the state policy in LAMP we have a waiver from having to get a waste discharge permit for these systems.
The regional board could remove that waiver and require permitting through them, they could cause a prohibition against discharging itself or some other option if they so chose.
And if the Los Olivos CSD did in fact dissolve what would happen?
Current day nothing it would be all up to the decision of the regional board. The regional board has previously provided letters to the CSD and I believe LAFCO showing that status quo wouldn't be left as status quo but their end path at this time you know, I do not know.
But it's likely a county responsibility?
Correct. It won't stay status quo if it dissolves.
And the county would still have to go through a 218 vote and come up with the money, right?
Correct.
2:12 – 2:189 turns
Okay I think that's all until after public comment thank you.
Thank you. Commissioner Nelson. Yeah i'm just curious so what happens if a 218 vote is unsuccessful There's no funding source at that point.
It would all go back to what that regional board decision was whether it's a moratorium, whether it's prohibition. It all depends on what the regional board decides and the actions they take. Okay thank you
I have a little bit of experience with with the failed to 18. It kind of depends is the short answer if if the vote is really close and there's something small you can change in the way that to 18 was proposed often it will go up for second vote if that one were to fail then you've really got a true failure on your hands right but What was just described I think is accurate.
Thank you, thank you for appearing there my understanding is we do not need oh there's a member of the public one public comment and we do not need a motion on it?
Yes we have a public comment from Hillary Heiser from Heal The Ocean in Santa Barbara
It was Ms. Hauser there? I see her.
Hillary Hauser from Heal the Ocean, the thing that won't leave. I'm not the executive director anymore. I am the strategic advisor so we've been involved in this issue for over 20 years and I want to salute Kathy Kennedy's report. We've been watching you making this progress. It is like pushing a rock uphill and I really would encourage the county to get the money out as fast as possible, get paid back later or whatever because in the case of Los Osos The state it wasn't the regional board. It was a state board came down and said moratorium you guys are out in the state board told San Luis Obispo County, you build it so moving forward with some way I instead of just a general another extension the 5th or 6th or whatever this is We would really like to see someone from the county.
You know work with this group get an informal committee together and get down to every last penny you need So the mood of our letter is slightly different than I feel now. I feel hopeful that the LOCSD can do this but when you see words like dissolution we're out of money in three months, this has got to be immediate help if they need immediate help if If it were to dissolve, yes it would be back on the county.
And I put a document from Santa Ynez Community Service District in here because that's where we were in 2017 as them as the conveyors but I mean possibly the committee a informal information Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank thank you very much thank you very much thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to make a disillusion and it's thrown back at the county.
I think with the county budget coming up, I don't know if we can squeeze something else out of another department even Help him out and get all the money now instead of this long flow death. I know how bad it is. I also agree with the statement that a few residents are maintaining a major tourist I think it's right to say that. We're going to have to wait a couple of months for the LOCSD to finish this project. It's got to get finished can't go 3 more month and risk them.
Dissolving. Thank you,
thank you.
2:18 – 2:2410 turns
But the solution would be an initiate, can be initiated by the district but ultimately LAFCO has to make the decision to dissolve and appoint a successor agency.
Oy. That's a comment. The oy would be a comment. I'd like to congratulate you on your Sisyphus emoji was very very clever rolling up rolling down gets lower every time you do it thank you very much I
have a couple of questions. You had a slide up there that said $700 per parcel, roughly how many parcels? is money. Money always gets in the way, it seems like. So help me. I've got a little bit of understanding with special districts. I've been at it for a long time myself. This was a special assessment? Are you are you limited in the assessment amount? Okay and to change that assessment amount, you have to go back to the voters for it?
So it's my understanding through the chair, Commissioner Guyer. It's my understanding we can adjust it annually and we do by CPI. Right? But beyond that, yes, we'd have to go back to the voters for an additional special assessment or placement special assessment.
OK. And you've never done that.
We have not. That's correct
because it kind of seems like that would be a good litmus test if they turned you down. It wasn't you that dissolved the district, they did. Most of what I've had a few maybe half a dozen people call me about this and of course the logical complaint is doing nothing. Well the longer it takes it seems like you're doing nothing and I understand getting funding isn't an easy thing to do but that may be an option if the voters would approve it Then you could move, it's a salesmanship of the district to be able to get that.
But this thing, our previous executive director I questioned after everything was done one year to do this? It wasn't logical at the time. But it was sold that, you know, you could come back. But the more you come back, the longer the period of time, the more detriment it is to you. And so I would really encourage you to really consider going back to the voters because if they approve it, hey, that's great. You guys are on the same page and you're moving forward.
If they tell you no, well, here's what it is but anyway thank you.
Yeah, I think my impression is when you go back to the voters you want to go with a plan that they're going to approve for and not just drips and drabs. And with fewer than 400 lots there's not a lot of people to spread an awfully big cost across so we need to get outside funding to get this but there is an incentive as you heard if there's a moratorium I mean people can't renovate their homes and add a bathroom. You know there's, there's a lot of development constraints on individual homeowners.
That's a good
sales point.
Yeah but the other side is that there's a large contingent that doesn't want to induce growth and so they're worried about connecting to solving. So There's a lot of things, what I just wanted to say two things. The county is working with the CSD and where our lobbyists are working and we're trying to find funding because we do realize that this is an issue and I think the fact that our environmental health director is here shows that we are committed.
The other thing I want to say is that I had no idea when this started out how complex, how much research and studies. And the CSD board has been extraordinary. You don't often find in a small community people who are that committed for that period of time to really enmesh themselves in the details. And these are high level professionals so I just think you deserve a lot I just want to say thank you for your appreciation from us recognition and from your community because.
You wanted to do it, you wanted to have a community solution that would be perhaps less expensive but it's taken an enormous amount of effort and meetings
2:24 – 2:437 turns
Thank you. Good luck. Shall we proceed to information item number two? Would the clerk please read that into the record?
Chair Stark and members of the Commission, information item number 2 is to receive and file an update regarding Cal LAFCO.
Mr. Prater, a Cal LAFCO update.
Thank you, Chair and Commission. CAT LAFCO update is don't mind this screen that will get the next presentation loaded for the next item. The CAT LAFCO Board held a retreat workshop in February of this year and they adopted a strategic plan Basically, that strategic plan put forth what their goals and expectations are and their priorities that was going to guide the CalAFCO board in the next fiscal year.
Most recently, the executive director of CalAFCO forwarded a summary of that retreat and staff has forwarded that to the commission as it came in post our packet agenda item. But essentially four key things kind of came out of that retreat and gave direction for the CalAFLCO board. First was the due structure, I think they recognize that the due structure is going to have to change.
Although they did adopt as you note in our second bullet point of our report, the board did adopt the same due structure for fiscal year 26-27 That included a 3% increase to the agencies as part of the association and that essentially minor increase to us was reflected in our proposed budget. The second thing that they acknowledged is legislative engagement They're going to have to figure out how to better engage, whether that's through the use of advocacies and figuring out how that's gonna work for them.
Third was staffing of Cal LAFCO staff itself in trying to address all of the key issues that they wanted to address They'll probably have to deal with some staffing issues and costs associated with that. And lastly was the governance structure, and they're going to continue that work as you know we've gone through a transition there's more work to be done. They now are going to look at their regions and its breakdown the board makeup and the seats that are Ultimately voted in on by the Associated Members. So those are the four key areas that they wanted to focus on and that essentially is our update for this item. There's lots more work to be done at the Cal LAFCO side.
If there's any questions of that, I'd be happy to answer any. Questions from
the Commission? Okay seeing none. This is receiving file so we don't know vote. Okay, we can go ahead and move on to item number
three. Chair Stark and members of the Commission information item number three is to receive a presentation report regarding countywide update on housing in general plans.
Okay Vice-Chair Nelson and Commission this is a continued item from our previous meeting. We really kind of were cut short on our last meeting and the commission really wanted to hear this presentation so We put together a bit more meat on what this covers. Essentially, this report was to help also guide your decision in adopting spheres of influences but what staff has done is we've put together kind of a general sense of what the cost of housing is throughout the county We looked at the affordability index and how that has, that trend has portrayed over the decade.
And we put it in context of the regional housing need allocation and the target projections that come out of each of these cycles. So we're currently as we indicated in the sixth cycle that runs until 2031 So each of these jurisdictions are issuing permits and tallying a number of houses that they're getting new permits for, and keeping a measurement of that. And they report that to the state. And so we're showing what that report looks like through their annual housing progress reports in juxtaposition of what their target allocation was.
And then we're giving a quick Spotlight on what their current planning and their activity is as it relates to the journal plan, as the cities and county are constantly trying to evaluate what changes they need to do and how to move forward. So with that, the affordability index is derived from a website through the Realtor group Looking at a trend of the cost, what things cost in our county.
And essentially 10 years ago it was about 10% change of what housing households could afford for a median household. That number has changed by at least 10% over the last decade Essentially report, you know also includes what monthly rents are. Our estimation we went to a number of couple different websites to generate that data anywhere between $2,500 to $4,800 Is what it costs to rent anywhere from a studio to a three bedroom place and it kind of varied based on location throughout the county. And so we're kind of throwing average numbers out there just, just to give some context to this. It's expensive to live here. We all know that there's numbers that bear out through that analysis and that's essentially what we're trying to demonstrate here.
The median home for the county is also listed what that sales price is and that has gone up as well over time. And we're not the only county, a lot of the state has done that way and is heading down that same trend but what we did show was some surrounding counties in what those indexes are with those abilities are and here we've shown Ventura County San Luis Obispo County. Those trends look similar to the trends that are going on in Santa Barbara.
I would note that if you look at that trend closely, Santa Barbara County exceeds both the two counties adjacent to us. They're also high as well but Santa Barbara seems to have a tick above of what they're trending and so Governor Newsom attempted to address this issue back in 2019. A number of legislative bills came out to sort of address this housing crisis.
Your staff took the time Dive into those bills far exceeded what our expectation was going into this. We thought it was a simple exercise of just identifying maybe 40, 50 bills. This is well over 200 bills that ultimately came out of the legislature to try to address that and so collectively the bullets here highlight what those are Essentially trying to make it easier to build housing, especially ADUs and particularly affordable units.
It reduced the local government's ability to block or delay housing projects. It strengthened tenant protections statewide. Bills created multiple pathways for housing on underutilized lands Establish stronger state oversight on local housing compliances, which made it tougher for local jurisdictions to address those same issues. And then it reduced a number of environmental review barriers through the CEQA process and they created some more exemptions for housing types.
And that's largely what a collective of those 200 bills did. Ten major themes sort of came out of that legislative process. They're listed here, tenant protections, streamlining, ADUs, affordable housing, CEQA reform, utilization of that land, right? Accountability through adoption of a housing element. If you didn't have a certified element, that opened up more loopholes for development to come in.
You needed to start addressing special populations, mobile home parks that thrown into the works and then just financing reforms in general about housing all came about. And so we thought, you know, we wanted to put this down in the report. Give good context, good background for the commissioners it might be a report that many of you in your other capacities might lean back on and go I know there was a bill somewhere and you'll be able to find it.
And so we wanted to make sure that was available to you. So that is the context and the backdrop. We then went a step further and looked at, well each of these jurisdictions have to be allocated their allocation of regional housing needs so that's what the top line is. That's the allocation this one for the county what they're expected to plan for they went through a housing element update to be able to achieve their allocation that they would not prohibit It's target, should the fair market allow these units to come forward?
The bottom line is then this is what the fair market is doing. These are the housing units that are actually coming through in this same time cycle of what's getting actual permitted and permits being issued so these are real houses on the ground getting built Keep in mind, there are still a number of permits that were issued some sort of land use allocation but hasn't been built yet. It's just the developer at the time hasn't made it worthwhile for them to move forward on the project. There may be other hurdles that they're facing with funding to get the project off the ground but they've been approved. They're just not being built.
These are actual houses being built and the categories that they're falling within And then lastly, and that line at the bottom is the county's journal plan last updated in 2016. So it's been some time that the county has made real changes to their journal plan. They felt their policies are relevant and consistent with what they want to see. The city of Buelton on the other hand Here's their allocation. Here's what's really getting built. So in this two-year time span, they did really well on very low income units.
They produced 140 already in just the two years of this eight year cycle. The city adopted its general plan in 2008 They're currently underway developing a comprehensive update to the drill plan that takes them out to 2050. And so they're looking at, as you can tell through their requests of their SOI, what does that next cycle bring for them and will they have the adequate land to do what they need to?
City of Carpinteria again, their allocation target number versus what's actually getting produced And again, they went through a journal plan update. It was last adopted in 2006. They have a current draft out of their coastal land use plan and their journal plan now being available for public comment. Their city councils expected probably in the next few months to take final action on how they're going to address new growth opportunities.
This is the City of Goleta's numbers and how they bear out Again, they last adopted their journal plan in 2006. They currently indicated that they have no current plan update to their journal plan but as we heard they're obviously going to try and update components of that so they can address their application through their sphere of influence process. But that'll be a limited subset of what their general plan is generally they felt good with their journal plan City of Guadalupe's journal plan, they recently adopted their journal plan in 2022 with an update and that plan will take them out to 2040. And you can see what their numbers look like.
The pattern here is it's only a two-year annual report that we're able to show Year 3 comes out in April, so here in the next month or so they'll do another annual progress report. They'll get to add new numbers associated with that but what we're seeing is Some communities are having particular troubles in certain categories. Others are, but overall most are below the target totals of what is being asked of them.
Right, here's City of Lompoc as we heard they're going through a general plan update. They anticipate taking another couple years to go through that this will be their 2050 journal plan outlook of what they are going to need. As we heard they're looking at four cycles beyond of what that's gonna take you know with an allocation of a lot of numbers not a lot of production that's actually going out City of Santa Barbara, again a lot of target expectations.
Very few actual permitted units that are coming on board. They've adopted their general plan in 2011 and 2019 with an update. Again they have no plan to do a comprehensive update that we know of at this point City of Santa Maria, again here's their numbers. They actually did really well in the low category far exceeded what the target number was. As we know they're just about to wrap up their comprehensive update to their journal plan it takes them out to view of 2045 And then last is the City of Solving and what their allocation looks like.
The community has not produced a whole lot of units in the last two years. They adopted their journal plan in 2024, so it's even most recent. And again that takes them out a look at 2045 that they've considered. So there's a lot of room for opportunities. A lot of these communities I said probably have issued at least on the planning level the opportunity for developments. They're just not coming out in real permit issuance for folks. So there's room for growth there. There's probably room for internally development opportunities, which is largely why the recommendation from staff was to keep their status quo SOIs. We didn't see that they were out of land, they were building houses tremendously far exceeding what their targets were and that they needed further growth that as an opportunity.
We think that's going to come down the road in the next cycle or two, and we're certainly going to be mindful of that but for today our recommendation was consistent with what we're seeing being issued in permits so again the purpose of this report was multiple to for the Commission and the public to look at various governance issues and what's going on We want to continue to build that relationship that met our overarching legislative goals, that met our work plan to continue to work with these communities and try to find opportunities for growth for them. That meet the targets for that meet their targets that also meet our targets.
And ultimately when we look at these and we evaluate these, we're looking at their general plan policies of what they say. We're looking at the county's general plan policies and what they say and where they align LAFCO can take that alignment and move forward on an action or they disalign Then LAFCO is put in the middle and have to figure out which plan better aligns with LAFCO's mission.
And we'll use that as our guidance to make future decisions on sphere growth and annexation growth. Again, we're summarizing only currently what's the planned activities as they relate to these land-use authorities. And again ultimately the commission was to sort of use this as their decision making tool as it kind of help relates to logical orderly growth and development throughout the county and where we think this growth is going to be needed So that concludes our presentation for this item. If there's any questions, I'll be happy to answer them.
2:43 – 2:4812 turns
Thank you. Are there commission comments or questions? Commissioner Knowles.
I'm trying to make a quick thank-you Chair Stark. Are ADUs incorporated in these numbers at all because I think it seems that they're not.
I believe eight new ADUs are incorporated into the permit issued numbers reported to the state
HCD. It seems really... It seems oddly low concerning the ADUs that are being permitted in some of these cities. I mean, City of Santa Maria to say only 936 units between all permits over the last two years is, I think is absurd. I mean it's much more than that. So I just I think we need to look a little
deeper into that. These came directly from the reports that the city issued. I think they're missing maybe on their end, they may want to report and I think there's some other cities or there may be as you
suggest not including ADUs. It doesn't appear to that even for the county on our numbers and what category those go in and there are some issues with that because sometimes you're just giving it to your having a relative live in there that aren't taking rent So where does that fit? Low, you know very low and so there's a lot going into that. Certainly more to flush out. Orderly growth I do want to because the numbers don't reflect it here but i did want to compliment the City of Santa Maria they think they've done an excellent job and their numbers are very high. I know Bealton's numbers look really good but I think if you dive a little bit deeper in the city of Santa Maria they've gone above me on and actually I think we're seeing that now in rents in the City of Santa Maria It's one of the regions in Santa Barbara County that rents are either flattening or lowering in some areas because of the new units coming online and I think it's also important when we look in the future on these charts that show the affordability is I do think we really need to regionalize that.
Because I think one size fits all isn't necessarily going to work for the county as we look into the future. And you know, the demands are different. The job situation is different. The incomes are different and so I think looking at these charts, all of them would help the conversation moving forward, you know? And I think we're going to probably do that at the SB CAG level when we look at these numbers again when we do the allocation next time is really looking at the market demands as much as part of the fair share.
So anyway, that's just my comment.
Thank you. Thank you. Any are there any comments? Are there any requests for public from the public?
Chair Stark and members of the Commission. There are no requests to speak on this item.
Thank you. I get no motion is needed. We should move on. The next item is Commissioner Item Commissioner announcements Are any commissioners want to make any announcements or requests for future agenda items? Not hearing any, I will give you a lightning fast report on the CEQA conference that I attended. There's two things I want to tell you as fairly interesting substantively pretty well tracked their report that our council gave us referred to the substance of it There are a couple things you need to watch out for, which I was told to watch out for. The major one is there are initiatives coming at least one coming relating directly to CEQA in November, which appears likely to qualify and additionally there's several initiatives being proposed that have to do with municipal financing And I don't think they are likely to make them any, any easier.
So that's one. The second point is you may notice that the UCLA doesn't do their conference anymore. I found it. They, they, I was informed that they can't land use conferences switch from the Big Ten UCLA to the Big 12, Arizona State. Arizona State has taken over it's the same conference at the same old hotel and it's done I think basically by the same people so we might want to I don't even know if we need Right here, Los Angeles. It's in Los Angeles. Sun Devil University is doing the land use so I would think we could slide right in but the conference as such has existed but the sponsor has taken a hike and fair enough. Any further executive officer comments?
Only one comment for the commissioners. You probably noted on the screen in Santa Barbara, we do have Natasha back at work so thank you for coming back to work. She may not be there right at the moment but she was there earlier and so we welcome her back. That's all the comments I have.
Thank you.
Wish everyone a happy holiday and we are now adjourned to Thursday, May 7th of 2026 at 1 o'clock p.m. in the city of Santa Barbara. Thank you.