Planning Commission

Good morning everybody. This is the June 3rd, 2026 meeting of the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission. One moment while we fix the sound system. All right so starting again this is the June 3rd 2026 meeting in the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission please call the roll

Yes, TV coverage announcement Planning Commission hearings are televised live on County Santa Barbara Television CSB TV channel 20 at 9 a.m. in the South Coast Lompoc San Ynez Valley Santa Maria and Orca areas rebroadcasts of planning commission hearings are on Fridays at 5 p.m.. On CSB TV channel 20 this hearing will also be streamed live on CSP TVs website and digitally archived on the county website

Thank you and roll call, please.

Mr. Chair and commissioners in regards to the status of our agenda We have two items on the standard agenda, which is the first one is a vesting determination and then the second one is a five-year capital improvement program. And staff and applicants are available to present on both those items today. I can move the projection report if you'd like Mr. Chair? Yes please At our last hearing, we canceled the hearings in June. We have no hearings on June 10th or 24th. We'll return as a commission on July 1st here in Santa Barbara.

After the July 1st hearing, we will be in Santa Maria for the development plan transfer of ownership of the Santa Maria asphalt refinery. Again that's July 8th in Santa Maria and then on July 29th we have one item and that's the tentative parcel map and that is scheduled to be here in Santa Barbara And then August 5th, we have one item which is a CUP and development plan for Equestrian Arena.

And that'll be here in Santa Barbara as well. After August there are no items projected through the rest of the year. That concludes the projection report Mr. Chair.

Thank you. And this is the time on our agenda for public comment Public comment period is set aside to allow public testimony on items not on today's agenda. Are there any requests to speak either in person or online?

Mr. Chair, we have received no requests to speak on general public comment. We did receive one letter that's in the box file. Just wanted to acknowledge it from Jana Zimmer.

And is that considered comment during the public comment period?

Yes.

All right.

Is there a mining operation or processing during the night?

Commissioner Park through the chair, the original approval for the quarry operations does have limitations to operating hours. There are sometimes exceptions to those limitations. If we haven't received any evidence that any light pollution is coming specifically from the quarry, so we can't necessarily confirm that. However, yes, the operation does have limitations to not operate during the night.

You know, I drive by there all the time at night and I never noticed it. But we watch folks who are very reliable and they say they see something. But I'm wondering if addressing their concerns with their suggestions of hooded lighting and so forth would interfere with the operation or whether it's just sort of more like security lighting and that they could Thank you.

I hesitate to say that through this project and this hearing we can require them to shield lighting because they do have a prior approval with conditions of approval and mitigation. This project in front of us isn't necessarily touching any physical changes to the environment, so I find it would be challenging to require mitigation for the project description in front of us.

We are on the same page.

My name is Jordan Main. I am a land use consultant presenting on behalf of Granite Construction Company and I'm here today with two representatives from Granite, Sean Palmer the resource manager and Shawn Diggins the plant manager as well as Granites external counsel Adam Guernsey and we do have a short presentation that all I'll walk you through First would really like to thank county staff. It's not often that a vested rights determination I think comes through a planning department, so staff did an excellent job thoroughly analyzing the evidence that we provided and assessing the vested rights. I just wanted to acknowledge that Given the thoroughness of the staff report, I'm going to try to make this brief and not double up on material that Katie just presented.

I did want to take a step back though and introduce and summarize Granite Construction as a company and the importance of the B Rock Quarry to the local community So Granite is a nationwide contractor headquartered in California. Granite was founded in 1922, so it's one of the oldest contractors in the state. It's been at it for over 100 years. Heavily invested within the local community with a strong presence employs over 500 folks locally.

And also invested with local community events. Granite has been operating at the B Rock Quarry since 1992, and I think Katie mentioned that. The B Rock Quarry itself is a really critical local resource for Santa Barbara County. And when we take a step back and think about what it provides, aggregates are the basic fundamental building blocks of the construction industry.

They go into asphalt and concrete which are used in roads, buildings, structures, schools, hospitals. Literally almost everything we encounter in our daily lives structurally comes from aggregate at its core. The state of California has estimated that on average each resident in California uses five to seven tons of aggregate per year, and that indicates an overall demand in Santa Barbara County in excess of two million tons a year.

And to supply this local demand there are really two critical components that need to be met. Number one is a local resource. So having aggregates locally has a huge and profound environmental benefit to reduce truck traffic and emissions from having to import material from distant sources, it also obviously lowers costs for construction projects And maybe most importantly, not all aggregates are created equally. So high quality aggregates exist where they exist geologically and B Rock Quarry has very high quality limestone that meets the specifications of Caltrans and the local public works departments making it suitable for use in roadways. Here's here's b-rock material being used on the slide on the current Highway 101 project between Carpentry and Santa Barbara, so it's a really important local source of materials for the building industry and a driver for the local economy Turning my attention to the vested rights and again just a brief overview, so there was another slide that showed this.

This slide kind of reiterates that the vested rights request is to acknowledge the vested right for the existing approximately 60 acre quarry that's under permit along with the relatively small area of additional limestone reserve that's been mapped and identified at the site totaling about 12.6 acres And I wanted to walk through the vested rights process just because it's potentially very different than almost any hearing maybe you'll go through this year.

This confirmation hearing is not a traditional land use hearing. A permit is not being granted or an approval, instead this is a confirmation of a property right that is protected by the Constitution. And the entire basis of the property right is based on evidence and it's not discretionary. It's evidentiary. Here as Katie mentioned, there's overwhelming evidence of vesting. I work on quite a few of these vested rights projects throughout the state. This one has more evidence than I think I've ever seen on a vested rights request mainly because we have the benefit of really detailed records that the government kept in connection with the Kachuma Dam.

construction. So we have very clear and convincing evidence that mining started before the vesting date, there was a variety of uses associated with that mining that have continued to the present day. The mining on the site has continued since and it's the only use that's been devoted to that area of the property since the 1940s The operations, Katie showed a nice progression slide. The operations have continued across the aggregate deposit over time progressively indicating an intent to mine the full extents of the deposit and production has increased over time in response to market demands hitting as high as approximately 500,000 tons in 1997 So overall, there's really overwhelming evidence to support a confirmation of vested mining rights to the extents of the currently known deposit at the B Rock Quarry.

And we respectfully request your confirmation and adoption of the motion recommended by staff.

Are there questions for the applicant?

Yes, I have some.

Commissioner Park.

You know, I've been involved with this mine One way or another, for the entire time I've been on the Planning Commission which is eight years and so I hear things and then I don't remember who said them or when I heard them but I seem to recall hearing that it's something like 70% of the product here from this quarry goes to government projects. Is that right? Or in the ballpark?

I think that's a very good estimate between public and private similar type infrastructure projects but it sounds like 70%'s a good estimate for going into Public Works

The other thing that I think is, well it's important to me and I think it's important others but I'm just curious what you folks have heard. You know I drove back and forth along the mine on 154 for about 15 years before I ever knew the mine was there. I mean, I would see the trucks. I didn't know what they were doing and so forth but... And at least from my point of view, I can't see the quarry from the road and even the new part which is on that opposite face. So when we go back and look at the pictures of the Butte You know, that's looking from the south. So that view of the big rock there is not the view that the public has ever had. That's the view that cows and deer have.

And I think even with the new area to be quarried it won't be visible from 154. I wonder if you can confirm that and whether you can have any history of any complaints about visual impact. I haven't seen them in our hearing record

Yeah, I think this one of the really unique benefits maybe of the quarry site being a component of a very large contiguous land holding and not visible from a prominent location. Some quarries in this is a function of what I mentioned about the geology really dictating where they sit. This one has the benefit that geology places it in the center of this parcel that is not visible from many locations and I'm not aware of any complaints related to visual impacts and in fact, to address your...

We read the comment letter. We were actually a little surprised by its contents just because the granite construction hasn't received directly any complaint and given its location we wouldn't anticipate that there would be any lighting-related impact so there may be some confusion about surrounding uses maybe on the property But we certainly are committed to looking into that further, but aren't aware that lighting would impact the campground.

Thank you.

Any other questions for the applicant? Commissioner Ford.

Thanks so much on slide four I mean I love data and and I'm just kind of interested if you know how this data is was compiled in terms I guess I understand the 2 million tons of aggregate used in the state of California every year, and then is it just a simple math problem to say that every resident uses 5-7 tons?

Yeah, it's a good question. So the two million is actually representative of what would be anticipated to be used just in Santa Barbara County that

okay

demand throughout California is actually much greater than that so California the state geologist publishes an official report on some routine cadence just recently updated it and over time Just based on annual consumption in use throughout California they average Based on population, what the total amount of aggregate used is in terms of each person. What they would theoretically require just for quality-of-life improvements. So this is Caltrans roadways being built and bridges throughout the state so on average it's worked out to between five and seven tons per year for every resident throughout the state which is really kind of an alarming amount. It's a very high number that most people maybe don't appreciate until they hear it

Thank you.

We have no request

to

speak

for this item and no letter submitted All right. We will close the public hearing and move directly to commission questions and deliberation. Anybody want to start off? Commissioner Park.

I'm glad to start because it's in my district, and I've become familiar with it over the years This site supplies an important material for our public, and there are fewer and fewer mines that are available to do this. And this will not be visible from the road I think I might have seen it going up the Tepiscate Trail near the top, but is that a major concern for the public? I've never met another person who's gone up the Tepiscate Trail.

So I think it's not gonna bother anybody. What would bother people is if we couldn't use this resource and had to open new mines in places. It would be a permitting nightmare for any applicant. Mr. Main probably is aware of that what a new mine would look like And it would be hard to find a spot where you would have the screening that you have here. So, it just seems to me to make sense for everyone that this mine be allowed to expand into the area of the limestone that it knows is there.

So I absolutely support the project.

Commissioner Ford.

It's clear that there is evidence for the pre-existing operation. The photos are really helpful, the documents that we've seen are also great evidence and I really enjoyed knowing the historicals. I have nothing constructive to add other than I would support the recommendations.

I am in the same position. The staff report was complete and convincing, and the applicant's presentation and information provided to the staff makes this an easy decision for this commission And so I will be ready to support a motion to support the staff recommendation. If the staff would put the staff recommendation back up on the screen, so that we can have an appropriate motion, I would appreciate that.

And there it is. All right who wants to make a motion?

We wouldn't have noticed. All

right. So there is our staff recommendation, point 1.2. Is there a commissioner who would like to make the motion to support the staff recommendation? Commissioner Park.

Yes and I'll do that because it's in my district. I will move that we follow the staff recommendations that are laid out on slide 10 of the staff presentation and that are incorporated in the staff report and that we adopt the findings that are attached to the staff report.

Thank you. Is there a second?

I'll make a second.

All right, Commissioner Forrest seconds. Any discussion? All those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. All opposed say no. Motion is unanimously adopted. Thank you to the staff thank you to the applicant for an excellent presentation And I think we're ready to

right,

we're going to just pause briefly while our staff rearranges the folks at the table.

Okay, I will read item 2 into the record. Item number 26 GOV-0003 Five Year Capital Improvement Program Comprehensive Plan Conformity Determination. The following is the hearing of the request of Planning and Development Department staff on behalf of Board of Supervisors to review the proposed new projects in the five year capital improvement program For fiscal years 2026 to 2031 and reports of the Board of Supervisors as to their conformity with a comprehensive plan pursuant to Government Code 65401 and 65402.

Very good, any ex parte disclosures from any members of the Commission? Seeing no requests to speak let's move on to the staff presentation

Good morning members of the commission. Alex Suttle with Long Range Planning and just a quick introduction of the team here we have moving down the line Kathy King Supervising Planner, Allie Castaneda Project Planner and Danielle Moore Project Planner who will be running the presentation. We also have a couple of staff from different departments in the room with us that can answer particular questions you may have about any other projects from both General Services and Public Works. This is a program or project that we do each year so with that I'll pass it off to staff.

Ms. Moore?

Good morning Chair McConnor and Commissioners, my name is Danielle Moore and I'm joined here of Ali Castaneda and today we'll be presenting the 2026-2031 Capital Improvement Program known as the CIP Comprehensive Plan Conformity Review Today's hearing is to review the new projects in the five-year 2026 to 2031 Capital Improvement Program as referred by the Board of Supervisors. Staff reviews the new projects to see if they conform with the county's comprehensive plan, as required by Government Code Sections 65401 and 65402 Now we'll be diving into the CIP process and government code requirements in the following slides.

The CIP is a compilation of proposed capital projects which implement various plans across the county. The CIP is done in the five-year planning period annually and General Services has a lead role in the CIP process and with, and handling the property management of all other county departments besides the three shown on this slide This chart shows how today's hearing fits into the annual CIP process.

First, each county department prepares a list of proposed projects which they send to the County Executive Office to include in the new CIP. The CIP is then developed by the Budget and Research Division. The Board of Supervisors conceptually approves the CIP and then refers the projects to the County Planning Commission for conformity determination. As we are doing today, Planning and Development staff prepares recommendations regarding the conformity of all the projects with the county's comprehensive plan.

Afterwards, staff will forward your findings to the Board of Supervisors for receipt and file. Government Code Section 65401 requires that the county prepare a list of new projects recommended for planning, initiation or construction in the upcoming fiscal year and perform a programmatic level review of all new capital projects. Government Code Section 65402 has three main triggers, which are the following. The first is the acquisition or disposal of property. The second is the vacation or abandonment of streets including easements and road right-of-way. And the third is a construction of any new public buildings or structures.

Now I will hand off the rest of the presentation to Ali.

Thank you. In the next few slides, we will review the specific projects identified in this five-year CIP and their conformity determinations. The 2026 to 2031 CIP includes 14 projects that require review including 10 that have not been reviewed in previous years. Two projects were reviewed previously, but conformity could not be determined at that time and new information is now available.

Two other projects were found in conformity previously but have changed significantly since that determination was made so as to require additional review. Of the 14 projects reviewed, six are from Public Works Transportation. Four are from Lacuna County Sanitation District and Flood Control Resource Recovery and Waste Management General Services and Parks all have one project each in this conformity review.

This map shows the locations of the 14 reviewed CIP projects The proposed projects include acquisition of parcels for a new library, sewer lines, storm damage repairs and mobility improvements just to name a few. As you can see, a majority of the projects are located in the North County. And to clarify Site 11 Mission Canyon slip-out repairs includes four interconnected projects that are located at the same location.

For government code section 65401 conformity review, eight projects conform to the comprehensive plan and six projects have insufficient information for a conformity review determination and will therefore require future review. For government code 65402 review, six projects out of the total 14 trigger review Five projects conform to the comprehensive plan and one project is insufficiently developed.

In addition, two projects out of the 14 have an unknown status and will require future review. This conformity review is part of the CIP, is not considered a project as defined by CEQA and therefore not subject to environmental review. The CIP is a government funding mechanism and does not commit to any specific project which could result in a potentially significant physical impact on the environment.

However, each project selected for funding in the CIP will need to complete their own CEQA process. Staff recommends that the Planning Commission take the recommended actions as listed on page 1 of the staff report and summarized here. To review and consider the new CIP project's conformity with Government Code Sections 65401 and 65402, to report the County Planning Commission's conformity findings to the Board of Supervisors, and to determine the Planning Commission's review of the CIP is not a project pursuant to CEQA.

We would also like to acknowledge the important role General Services in facilitating the CIP as a critical resource in coordinating the conformity review. We have here in the audience Diana Estorga, Capital Division Chief of General Services and Ted Tabor, Assistant Director of Real Property. This concludes our presentation and we are available for questions at this time. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Are there questions of staff from any of the commissioners? Commissioner Park.

You know, I've watched this process several times and it's the first time ever thought about our projects not ready for conformity determination. And so if I understood the slide correctly, there are some projects here that are not, they'll require further review And I presume that's our Planning and Development Department's determination. Is there disagreement among departments about this?

Do I have folks in the audience who want to say, no these are ready we don't need to go through this process again?

Commissioner Park, through the chair. We met extensively with each of the departments that have projects in the CIP because we want to make sure that our observation that there might be additional information needed is not going to be difficult for them and so we don't have any disagreements with the departments And we have a sense that the projects, while they're in conceptual design and not finished, we also inform the departments that they can independently with each project come before you for conformity review in the future.

Well, here's a follow-up question and I'm really presuming the answer should be no. And that is, is there anything the Planning Commission can do today that would hasten those conformity reviews or make it easier to do that?

Well, in cases where the projects are ready for 65401 conformity review, we have put that before you so that even if they are kind of part of the way through and still require 65402, we made sure that we went as far as we could to assist with the projects.

So the most efficient thing we can do to be helpful is just simply adopt your

recommendations. Yeah, we were as thorough as we could possibly be. Well

and I appreciate that thank you.

Commissioner Ford.

Thanks just for the information of the public and also for me could you give examples of what insufficient information might be?

To Commissioner Ford for the chair, some triggers for insufficient information are if the CEQA process for the project is still outstanding. As my supervisor Kathy said also with the projects still in conceptual review our ideal state for reviewing projects is before they're initiating construction and right after they're towards the final design stage so any projects that might be earlier than that That usually will be a trigger for insufficient information and also if the project is a few years out or if it's still pending funding.

If I'm a department and I'm thinking of a project, do I go to you first to say what do I need to be in conformity? Because otherwise if I do everything and then come to you and hear the message this doesn't conform well that was all for naught. Do they come to you first?

Well, Commissioner Martinez through the chair I would say that there's kind of a running list. You know we were doing the conform we're recommending action on conformity review for the projects that have enough information but Over the years, and because some projects do take numerous years to go through the design process or there's changes that need to be kind of reincorporated in the project.

We do revisit projects over a number of years. So each year when we go through this process, we do check in with the department see how the projects have advanced and see if there's any way that they're It could be enough information to pick it up each time that we do our annual review. But I think you're asking the question, if a project is brand new on the CIP list that comes to us from the board, are the departments meeting with us to make sure that there's enough to complete the conformity review?

And I would just say that we meet with them as soon as, as soon as the board releases a CIP list. And we did meet with every department you know sometimes numerous times so and we do share our needs as far as what would be a complete design or complete review. And because the projects take a long time, the departments know what they should be aiming towards if they want to be part of this annual review next year or if they want to come before you as an individual project for conformity review.

Well thank you. Thank you for that. Any other questions or comments from the commission? Seeing none. All right, public comment. Are there any requests

to speak either in the room or online? Mr. Chair we have no letters submitted for this item

if anybody would like to make a public comment on this item please raise your hand in the chat or in audience seeing none we have no public comment for this item

all right no public comment therefore will close the public hearing on this item and move directly to Commission deliberation Anybody wish to lead off on the, can we put up the staff recommendations up on the screen please just to refresh ourselves about that? There we are. Three items. Commissioner

Ford. Thanks I just have a question of my fellow commissioners since I'm fairly new is anything controversial about this Mr. Park or Mr. Martinez?

I just know that in the past from my recollection because I was trying to remember, in the past there's been some issues as to what it what projects were approving in a sense and more description but these seem these this year just seemed really kind of straightforward. I know that was probably the most I can recollect in the past.

Thank you

Well, I kind of tried to stir some up but there really wasn't anything to do. And you know our role is limited we're not really approving the project in terms of is it well designed or do we like the color of the roof? Or is the funding appropriate? We're just looking at conformity with the general plan and I think we're ready to roll

Thank you for that clarification, I do too feel ready to roll. That's

it. Commissioner Park's explanation I think reflects my own understanding as well we're not approving any of the projects that are on the list what we're doing is making a recommendation to the Board of Supervisors to find that the projects on the list are consistent with our long-range plans so that It checks a box and moves these projects towards the next stage, which is design and permitting in whatever permits that they may require. May or may not come to us for review at some other point so I would think this is a preliminary relatively easy step to take, provided that the consistency findings can be made. So I'm comfortable with it as well. Is there a commissioner who'd like to make a motion related to the staff recommendations? Commissioner Martinez.

I'll make the motion to adopt the staff recommendations as presented here on our screen at slide 15.

Very good. Is there a second?

Yes, I'll second it.

Commissioner Ford seconds it. Is there any discussion on the motion? No discussion on the motion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed say no. The motion is unanimously approved and thank you to staff for very clear and excellent work on this particular matter. Alright.

Thank You Mr. Martin for filling in

I

wanted to thank Mr. Martin for filling in and telling me you did a good job. You did a good job as fill-in chair because this is the first hearing I've ever been to where we actually had matters and it was over by 10.

Thank you for that, but this was not a heavy lift. Let's put it that way. There being no other business, I believe this meeting is now adjourned and we will have our next meeting on July 1st. Is that right? Very good. Thanks everybody, thank you to the staff.