Los Alamos bungalow resort hotel killed by county's ag buffer, developer says | Local News
One of the developers who wanted to build a multimillion-dollar bungalow-style resort hotel in Los Alamos said the project has been killed by the agricultural buffer required by the Santa Barbara County Planning and Development Department.
Thomas and Matthew Ryan hoped to construct a hotel consisting of 44 bungalows and a main reception and registration building on a 2.1-acre site located at the west end of Bell Street behind the Welcome to Los Alamos sign.
Thomas Ryan said he wasn’t building the hotel as a moneymaking project but as a business he and Matthew could retire to that would improve the community and economy of Los Alamos.
When it was introduced to the community at a Los Alamos Planning Advisory Committee meeting, the reaction was generally favorable, although residents wanted a few changes and requests the Ryans were willing to meet, including giving residents a “membership” allowing them to use the pool and related facilities for free.
But Thomas Ryan said the Planning Department and Agricultural Commissioner’s Office determined a 300-foot agricultural buffer would be required between the project and the farmland to the west.
“That leaves me with 150 feet,” Ryan said. “I can’t build a hotel in 150 feet.”
He said he could make the project work with a 150-foot buffer, but a 300-foot buffer would take two-thirds of his property.
Although the county ordinance says an agricultural buffer can range from 100 to 300 feet, the Agricultural Commissioner’s Office set the appropriate buffer at 300 feet based on six reasons, according to a message to Ryan from county planner Rey Montaño.
The six reasons cited include that the project is immediately adjacent to intensive agriculture, the prevailing wind blows from the agricultural land toward the development, and an agricultural pump is located approximately 200 feet away.
Other reasons cited were the lack of topographical changes or other features of the land and such landscape features as vegetation, roads or fences that would mitigate the impacts of the development on agriculture.
Lastly, the message noted “the proposed development would cater to high-end urban tourists who may have limited knowledge and awareness of the impacts of lights, noise, odors and dust from commercial farming.”
There was no indication of how the hotel would have an impact on agricultural fields upwind from the development, and Ryan said he found the last reason somewhat ridiculous.
“I suppose the county of Santa Barbara must protect those rich urban tourists from farmers,” he said. “It sounds like they’re just trying to bolster their decision with this thing about high-end tourists.”
After receiving the notice that a 300-foot buffer would be required, Ryan met Aug. 22 with three representatives of the Planning Department in an attempt to reach some kind of compromise.
“I said, ‘I’m willing to do anything, I’ll plant a forest back there, I’ll build a fence, I can raise the grade,’” he said. “I can’t change the direction of the wind. The water pump on the land is hardly ever used. (The hotel guests) are not going to hear that.
“They were stone-faced,” he said. “They’re basically sticking to their guns. … They’re making an arbitrary decision and shutting down the best project to come to Los Alamos in … forever.”
He said they suggested asking Joe Carrari, who farms the land immediately west of the proposed site, if he would give up 300 feet of his land for the buffer.
“He’s not going to do that,” Ryan said. “I wouldn’t do that. No one would do that. … He thinks a 40-foot buffer would be fine with vegetation planted.”
Ryan said he knows he could appeal the buffer to the Planning Commission, but he was told he couldn’t get on the docket until December or January and it probably wouldn’t do any good anyway.
“I don’t have forever to develop this property,” he said. “I can fight it, but do I have another two years to fight it, plus the two years it takes to develop it? I’m 57 years old.”
Ryan said when he asked what could be developed on the property, he was told apartments with a 300-foot setback or a parking lot or self-storage units with a 150-foot setback.
“It’s like the gateway property to town,” he said. “They would prefer apartments or self-storage units as a gateway.”
Ryan said he thinks the only way the hotel can be built is if the community rises up to support it by contacting 3rd District Supervisor Joan Hartmann and asking her to get involved.
He added he has about $1 million invested in the land, spent $30,000 on architectural design that’s “just lost” and expected to spend $8 million to $10 million to build the hotel.
“I will do something there,” he said. “I’m not going to do self-storage. I could do mixed use or apartments. I have other projects. I can retire somewhere else.”
Ryan also said he understands how the houses to the south and Charlie’s Burgers to the north have no agricultural buffers at all because they were grandfathered in when the ag buffer ordinance was passed.
“I love Charlie’s,” he said. “I love their hamburgers. But I will be really irritated to sit on the patio right next to the farmland and eat a burger.”
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