Planning Commission

What's that? Are we on? Sorry. My hearing aids are, can you hear it out there? I'm turning them off. OK. Figure that out. Good morning everyone, this is the August 12th 2026 meeting of the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission.

Wednesday? It'd

be a Wednesday.

So that's a date we would... Well usually we don't do the third

It's a day that the County Planning Commission doesn't normally meet, so that's why we're asking for a special hearing. So that's an MPC scheduled hearing date. So if we could get some concurrence from the commission today and then I'd request a motion to set that as a special hearing on October 21st.

That's good for me and I'll make the motion to schedule a special hearing on October 21st.

And it's good for me, and I'll second the motion.

So Mr. Chair and Commissioner O'Connor, I missed that.

The 21st and 28th, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., is acceptable to me and I will second the motion to set those two hearings.

All those in favor? Wait hold on one second sorry. Sorry Chair. We're moving fast. I appreciate that thank you So let's take that as it will, we'll take a separate motion to cancel any of the hearing dates. So well let's do this one first so we have a motion on the floor and seconded to set a special hearing for October 21st. So Mr. Chair you can, well the 20th is already a hearing so...

Is there any further discussion regarding October 21st? All those in favor? Aye. None opposed? Okay, motion passed. Motion carries so now we need to cancel the meetings on October 7th and October 14th. So Mr.

Chair looking at the projection report I'm looking ahead we have September 2nd they have no items projected. I don't anticipate there are going to be any items on that means that those items that have been due. So I'd recommend a motion to cancel October 2nd, September 2nd. Sorry, September 2nd thank you and then we can also cancel October 7th and the 14th.

And also

change the time on September 30th to 1 p.m.? Yes. Okay so I move that we cancel the meeting on September 2 We changed the time on the meeting for September 30th to 1 p.m., and we cancel October 7th and October 14th.

Second.

Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. None opposed? Motion carries.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Commissioners. Thank you for indulging us and we will at the next hearing, the projection report reflect the changes that we made today. So appreciate the collaboration and help in getting that item scheduled for us so thank you.

I have a question about the projection report rather request it sounds like in our next couple of hearings its predominantly third district matters And I've looked at them on the projection report. I don't know anything about any of them and because it's so many of them, I didn't want to be in a position that somebody calls me on a Tuesday morning and says can you come out for a site visit? And I get four of those.

So I would hope that somebody at P&D could brief me with three or four sentences about what each of these is about so I can do a little site visiting in the meantime and plan for that.

Commissioner Park through the chair will coordinate with the manager to have them reach out to you. Thank

you may ask that they reach out to all of us not just commissioner park let us all know Mr. Chair commissioners that we can do that okay thank you. Thank You Commissioner Park so

Yes, Mr. Chair. I have not received any slips. I'm not sure if anyone in the audience is holding one and there are no slips over here. It looks like we have no requests.

Okay. Thank you. So

Yes, I would. May I go ahead?

Yes thank you Commissioner Park.

There are some upcoming things that planning commissioners may want to attend or members of the public. The first that I can recall is Farm Day on September 19th Some or all of the commissioners may have actually received an invitation from SEAG for their VIP tour, where you tour around in a bus and you have a really wonderful set of meals. Seems endless. And it's just a good time to meet a lot of good people on the bus. So I'd really recommend you come. It's fun but to get a sense of what the whole county is all about There's no one thing you could do that would be any better than go to Farm Day and it supports a really great organization.

So I hope you all do that, I'll do that. Second on September 23 through 25 is the California Ag Tourism Summit. I attended that and David Lackey did last year It's really good. It's up in Paso Robles, so it's reachable. They'll have a sort of a get together on the 23rd they'll have on the 24th which is a Thursday. They'll have field trips by buses to various ag tourism facilities in San Luis Obispo County which I look forward to seeing because it's somewhat different rubric than ours, and then they'll have some panels on Friday.

Again because so many of the topics we get in front of us including the upcoming Recreation Master Plan deal with this kind of thing is it's worth your time. Third in Santa Barbara is the conference at that exact same set of dates the 23rd through 25th RCRC, which is rural counties representatives of California. Bob Nelson. is or will be their new president or chair. And it's various members of the board, supervisors from all the different rural counties and there's something like 40 of them that are classified that way.

Their lead off panel on Wednesday morning, the 23rd will be tourism and I will be one of the two panelists on that. And I don't know how you get into that meeting unless you get elected to the Board of Supervisors. But probably if you asked, you could because they'll have staff with them as well. And finally, just for kicks, I have a photo I gave David Villalobos to put on the screen We're getting there.

All right, this is a slide I'm going to use on the 23rd on tourism to illustrate that we have things in every county that are out of this world. This is within 12 miles of Santa Barbara. It's a waterfall I discovered in June. It is not on any map. The stream is not on any map. I had to figure out a way to get to it. I shot this with a drone You know, I travel all over on horseback and my endurance rides. And this is something I discovered from one little place.

But it's a 120 feet tall which makes it the second tallest waterfall in the county. It's 1.5 times the height of Nahui Falls that you see near Buelton. Top 10, if not top 5 tallest waterfalls in Southern California. And there you go and it runs all year so it shows that no matter what we think of tourism in our county there's all sorts of other things that we can enjoy if we just explore enough and organize our ordinances and things to accommodate these ventures.

So thank you I'm finally done

Thank you. How about site visits, Commissioner

Park? What in particular?

Well you and I both did the site visit at Santa Maria Asphalt.

Oh yes well we'll announce that when we get to that matter.

Okay.

You know where you'll ask before every item you'll ask if there are any site visits we have to report.

Okay.

I mean, I do it now but I think it's more useful then. But

thanks for asking. Okay any other Planning Commissioners informational reports? No okay that

I'll second.

Okay, any discussion? All in favor? Aye. I abstain because I was not part of the meeting motion passes okay item number 10 Director's Report and Board of Supervisors Hearing Summary.

Mr. Joint Commissioner Director Pound will be providing that remotely okay great thank you

good morning commissioners Welcome, Commissioner Guy. We're very excited to have you on the commission.

Thank you.

And thank you for all the information about your history. I think we shared time at UCSB. Probably. Yeah so um i wanted to thank Commissioner Park for bringing up a couple of items one farm day I have attended for the last few years and it has been extremely educational. So, I do recommend that commissioners attend if possible. You always learn something new and they do serve great food. And it's very helpful to understand the ins and outs of the agricultural operations up in the Santa Maria Valley and the technology that they're bringing into the fields and the challenges that they face as regulations grow and for food safety.

And then on the Ag Tourism Summit, we, the department may have a representative attending to talk a little bit about our experience with our ag enterprise ordinance lessons learned. David Lackey did present last time. We've had an inquiry so we're working that out. So we may be in attendance making a presentation. Our county seems to be sort of on the forefront of these types of regulatory incentives for agricultural operations. We presented at the County Planning Directors Association for California, and there weren't a lot of counties that had engaged in it yet in an extensive way.

So I think they're all excited about moving forward with something that can help stimulate more economic security for the ag operations that they have in their communities, which is the intent of the Ag Enterprise Ordinance. I have not seen you all for a while so I have a fair amount to report on what the board has done. On July 7th they heard the Rose General Plan Amendment and Rezone which was in the second district and that was approved They heard an appeal of an incompleteness determination for Diana Sandoval on an ADU and they found that the application was in fact incomplete.

And then we had been asked by the board to come back with an item regarding ICE detention facilities, and there had been a question as to whether or not our codes would allow for such facility. And through our research, We don't actually have any uses in our code that are similar to a detention facility. So when there is no use identified in our code, it's not an allowed use in the county.

Now if the federal government came in and built one on their own property or leased a property and built one they could do that but there have been instances across Warehouses have been leased to or upgraded or changed some kind of detention facility by a private entity and then ultimately leased to the federal government. And in this case, if a private entity came in and proposed something along those lines we would not approve it because it's not a permitted use.

And so the board had sought an update as to what Whether or not we needed an amendment to prevent that. There were three board members interested in that. And then on the 14th of July, we had an update on the implementation of a CELA across multiple departments in the county and a CELA for Commissioner Guy if since he's new is the software, the permit software that we use in planning development. Planning Development was the first department to bring a CELA And now Acela provides a lot of different types of services. And we've got environmental health on Acela, we've got fire on Acela, public works is on Acela and the CEO is also on Acela with respect to cannabis licensing. So all departments including ITD which led the hearing presented an update on where we are with all of the advancements that we're making in the new software that we're implementing through Acela.

And if you're interested in that, I highly recommend watching it because I think it's very informative on the technology that we're bringing into the county. And then we had our first hearing on that date for utility scale solar and that was the 14th. The board had some changes they wanted to make to the code and some additional research they wanted us to conduct which we have done and we are going back on next Tuesday, on the 18th for a final approval of that ordinance package. A couple of things they were interested in was creating an exemption for a small standalone battery energy storage system and what we're bringing back is quarter acre of a standalone that could be exempt in tier one And another change you might be interested in is the agricultural community.

In fact, Shipper Growers asked if they could establish a Tier 1 exemption for up to 15 acres on agricultural properties if that solar is to serve the agricultural operation solely and we have incorporated that into the code and there's a couple other minor changes as well. And then in terms of future board actions, as I mentioned Utility Scale Solar will be on Tuesday. The continued item we have the HAG 4's general it's a rezone in the 3rd district and that's going on the 18th as well and then on the 1st of September we have the Coastal Resource Mitigation Fund mid-cycle fee assessment reassessment that We're actually going to be changing the fees for the SABLE operations now that they've been active. They are gonna have to contribute additional funds to the Coastal Mitigation Fund, which is then used for grants in the coastal zone up and down the county for different types of projects.

Let's see, and then on the 15th of September we have the first phase of the oil and gas amendments that would prohibit future drilling of new wells. And that will be what we have projected for the board and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Any questions? No. Okay, so Mr. Villalobos. Thank you. Help me with the next step here. Thank you very much for the presentation.

So next is our standard agenda. I can read the first item into the record. Yes please And then we can go into ex parte declarations. Okay, thank you. Great the following is a hearing on the request of cap resolution partners LLC doing business as Santa Maria Road Materials to consider approval of change of owner operator and guarantor for the Santa Maria Asphalt Refinery Development Plan Permit Number 95DP001 Revision number 3 in compliance with Chapter 25 B of the County Code and to determine the requests are exempt from CEQA pursuant to CEQAs Guidelines Section 15378B as outlined in the Notice of Exemption.

Thank you.

Okay, help me out just a... okay Are there any ex parte comments? Any site visits? Sorry, Commissioner Park. I got out of the line earlier but...

You know every other new chair and I've faced four new ones in the last 18 months usually just forgets to even ask about ex parte contacts or visits so if you get it out of order you're still ahead of the rest.

Oh well thank you.

There you are. Mr. Guy and I had a site visit at this site in a meeting with Mr. Fields, I think Mr. Robinson, Mr. Hankey all on the project. It's very useful. I'm older than Mr. Guy so I don't remember the date but maybe he does.

Okay. Yes, Vince? I had a conversation with Mr. Aaron Hanke last Wednesday regarding this project and just discussed in regards to the documents that have been submitted thus far. That's it.

Thank you. Anybody else? Okay. I also would like to share that I did the site visit with Commissioner Park at Santa Maria Asphalt And I also have had a conversation with Aaron Hanke regarding the same subject to help clarify a few questions that I had. That's all I have to report.

And Mr. Chair, I believe now we should go on to staff presentation.

Okay. I would like to ask that we have staff presentation at this point

Good morning Chair and members of the Commission. My name is Aaron Briggs I'm the Deputy Director for the Energy and Minerals Division, and this morning I have our Supervising Planner Jax Ibarra giving our presentation. Great thank you. All

right good morning commissioners welcome Chair Guy on the case planner Jacqueline Ibarra and as Deputy Director Aaron Briggs said he's also here today and we're also both UCSB alums so go Gauchos!

Go Gauchos, thank you.

Today the Commission is considering the change of owner, operator and guarantor for the Santa Maria Asphalt Refinery's County Development Plan permit. The request is on behalf of CAP Resolution Partners Doing Business at Santa Maria Road Materials for a change of owner, operator and guarantor of the refineries development plan permit number 95DP001 under Chapter 25B of the County Code which governs the process of transferring county permits for certain oil and gas facilities.

And because the application involves a change of owner, guarantor and operator the requests have been combined and to be decided upon by your Planning Commission. Important to note, the request today is to transfer the county permit for the refinery and not for the transfer, bless you, of the refinery itself. And that the permit transfer does not include authorization to restart the facility. That's a separate process under the jurisdiction of Planning and Development and the County Fire Department and the County Air Pollution Control District under existing permit conditions and other authorizations.

The facility is located at 1700 Centon Road outside of Santa Maria in Mr. Martinez's 5th Supervisorial District. You can see in the zoomed out figure, the city of Santa Maria to the east and the facility is about four miles to the west in a more rural area and the zoomed-in figures shows the refinery itself which borders Centon Road and the Santa Maria Valley Railroad This slide gives you a little bit of background and timeline on the refinery. So it was built in the 1930s, and the county issued a development plan permit in 1995.

In 1999, it was acquired by Greca Refining Company, and in 2018, Greca changed its name to California Asphalt Production or CAP. They operated the refinery until 2021 when operations were then shut down by orders from the County Fire Department due to fire code violations with various requirements for restart. CAP essentially then left the refinery idle and eventually went bankrupt in 2024.

In 2025, Santa Maria Road Materials acquired the refinery through a bankruptcy restructuring and now owns the refinery offices and associated lands. Following the acquisition, Santa Maria Road Materials applied to transfer their county permit earlier this year. It has been processed and that is why we are here today. For environmental review of the request, permit transfer does not constitute a project as defined by CEQA section 15378 which exempts administrative actions of governments that do not result in direct or indirect physical changes to the environment.

The permit transfer would meet this definition as the resulting action would update the owner operator and guarantor on the county permit and it would not result in a physical change to the facility. Okay, so for the meat to the potatoes this is a consistency analysis. We analyzed the application in relation to the required findings of Chapter 25B and determined that each finding can be made and they are listed here and I'll go through each in summary.

So first for financial guarantees, we confirmed that Santa Maria Road Materials is current on all their outstanding fees. They've paid over $660,000 in legacy compliance and permitting fees both to Planning and Development and the Air Pollution Control District For item number two, for financial guarantees, Chapter 25B only requires that existing insurance bonds and other financial documents are updated to reflect the new owner.

In this case neither county code nor the permit conditions require Santa Maria Road materials to have insurance for the facility However, there is a permit condition that requires they be responsible for any upset condition. So think oil spill fire hazardous materials release etc. So to demonstrate that they can be financially responsible for such a condition The applicant did provide copies of their existing insurance, which covers $7 million and that's for the EIDL facility as it stands today.

And they've stated that they will increase that insurance to no less than $20 million once the facility is operational For bonds, the permit requires San Maria Road Materials to post a reclamation bond at the permanent shutdown of the facility or continue to pay property taxes through final abandonment. So there is nothing currently on file, no current bond for them to update.

For item three as part of their application, San Maria Road Materials did accept all conditions and requirements of their permit. For item four, safety audits. Chapter 25B requires a safety audit be provided to the new owner, the county conducted safety audit. We last conducted a safety audit on the refinery in 2020 and found approximately 148 outstanding issues that needed to be addressed before the facility shut down in 2021.

When Santa Maria Road materials took over, they did begin a comprehensive restoration program with various upgrades that are currently in progress that will address that audit as well as the fire department stop work orders and other violations. We have also scheduled a supplemental safety audit for August 26th, in which San Maria Road materials will be required to satisfy any findings prior to restarting the facility. And that safety audit will be with Planning and Development, the Fire Department and APCD and Building and Safety.

And finally on this slide for Item 5, Compliance with Permit Conditions. Technically the facility is out of compliance with their permit due to the various violations on the facility itself. However in accordance with Chapter 25B, the applicant entered into a binding compliance agreement with planning and development that demonstrates how and when they will satisfy all outstanding conditions which meets the requirement for this finding.

I'll skip over item six because it's the same as item two, just for change of guarantor versus change of owner. For item number seven, 25B requires that all major compliance plans for the facility be updated to reflect the new owner's contact information. As part of their application materials they did submit all updated plans and they are also being reviewed for overall comprehensive and technical accuracy by Planning & Development and the Fire Department and those more comprehensive updates are currently ongoing.

Secondary compliance plans would also be updated within six months of approval of the change of operator. For item eight, a transition plan. Because the former owner-operator went bankrupt, that was Greca slash California Asphalt Production, San Maria Road Materials couldn't prepare a transition plan with them. However the applicant did provide a comprehensive training plan that outlines the types of training, the schedules for training And that would be applicable to all new staff and staff that used to work at the refinery. It incorporates industry training, site-specific training and lessons learned from the previous operator.

For item number nine, emergency response drills. A desktop drill was conducted as part of San Mary Road Materials Training Program which is outlined in the transition plan in item eight and a field drill will be conducted with the fire department once their more comprehensive Fire Protection Plan is approved and they're currently in conversations with fire updating that plan now.

And finally for item 10, Operator Skills and Resources. So San Mary Road Materials, their managing partners are made up of two individuals here today, Mr. Dave Fields and Mr. Chip Moore both who have extensive industry experience as well as about 15 on-site operations staff who also have industry experience and some have experience at the refinery itself. Dave himself was a former chief executive officer and general manager of the refinery for 18 months, but ultimately left two years prior to the stop work orders being issued.

And we found no major incidents that occurred during Dave's management of the facility. Since then, now as part of San Maria Road Materials, Mr. Fields and Mr. Moore have put substantial resources into correcting violations and updating the facility, as well as becoming current on all fees and past due property taxes. So in conclusion, all findings can be made as discussed in attachment A to your staff report.

And we recommend that the Planning Commission one make the required findings for approval two determine the requests are not a project pursuant to CEQA and three approve the change of owner operator and guarantor on the county permit and adopt the conditions of approval And that concludes staff's presentation and we're happy to answer any questions or wait until after the applicant's presentation. Thank you.

Okay, now we will go to the applicant's presentation. No sorry Commissioner Park.

Questions from commissioners?

Okay. I'm sorry, questions from the commissioners?

Yeah and I always have questions. So okay. Okay, first thing I want to compliment Ms. Zabara on her report is typically thorough of all her reports and it's very impressive even she has little projects she has a great report and we should all appreciate this so I just like to see her. On prior transfers of this nature, meaning of this nature that relate to oil 25B.

Whether people like it or not I always ask about GHG emissions that we're going to see now that something restarts And I'm not terribly concerned about it here because I think they're very low and they probably net out to be a positive contribution, but it should be in the record. And so do you know what the GHG emissions will be from this project once it's up and operating? I'm sure APCD had those figures.

I've asked Mr. Fields for that and he'll comment as well. But I think that it'd be useful if you got that, you can tell us.

So Commissioner Park through the Chair, regarding air emissions we can get back to you on exact numbers but those are outlined. The facility had a mitigated negative declaration prepared back when the development plan was was issued and that analyzed air emissions from construction and operations of the facility. Like you mentioned, they also have permits through the APCD so they're limited on what air emissions they're allowed to emit. They're capped and that is all through Air Pollution Control District.

Do you have a ballpark figure where they are?

We can look it up.

Okay let me ask you this I'll ask Mr. Fields the same question assuming you go to the podium But not right now. But I'll ask you the same question and then if you could just confirm it, that's your understanding as well. I appreciate it.

Just to add to that a little bit so the negative declaration that was done for the project back in 1995 was done prior to greenhouse gases being a CEQA issue? And therefore it was not studied at that time. So that's the reason why we don't have a great estimate on the emissions is because it's never been looked at by P&D at the facility, right?

Okay. Well, thanks.

Quick question in regard I noticed that and reading this that there's a lead contamination area so is the applicant now the responsible party for cleaning up that lead contamination area

Mr. Chair and Commissioner Martinez, I think the applicant's going to be a little bit more familiar with the circumstances of that issue and it would be best to ask them.

Okay but this lead contamination area is within the project site we're talking about here today? I'm seeing head nodding yes. Okay okay well

wait for that answer when it comes up. Thank you. Any further questions or comments from the Commissioners? Okay, so at this point we'll go to the applicant's presentation.

Good morning can you hear me okay? Hello. Hi, Chair and Commissioners. I just want to confirm we have 15 minutes for our initial presentation and five minutes for rebuttal? Is that correct?

Yes, that is correct.

Okay thank you very much. I'm Beth Collins. I am a land use lawyer from Brownstein. I am here today on behalf of Santa Maria Road Materials. First, thank you so much to staff. Thank you Commissioner Park for noting. Thanks for your great work over these years and the very thorough presentation and report Second, our team is here. Chip Moore and David Fields, our CEO are here if you have questions which you apparently do and some we'll cover in the presentation. We might cover them in question-and-answer after as well.

Chip's actually going to do the presentation with me so if you have follow up for David he's here as well. So I just want to acknowledge this is a strange, relatively strange situation for the Planning Commission to consider in that we're not asking for new permit to develop. Instead my client purchased this property and the existing planned and the associated permit out of bankruptcy so it's that's an odd situation.