Santa Maria City Council considering zoning change for proposed apartment complex

SANTA MARIA, Calif. - Santa Maria City Council is discussing a zoning change Tuesday night regarding a proposed apartment for the west side of the city.

A 30-unit complex is planned at the end of South Oakley Court, located near West Knudsen Way.

"The apartment project has been previously approved by the Planning Commission," said ​​​​​Chuen Ng, Santa Maria Community Development Director. "However, that's contingent on the Council approving the land use change from industrial to residential."

The Planning Commission approved the project in mid-July.

Now, it's going to the City Council to see if the five-person board will approve the necessary zoning change needed to move the plan along.

The proposal doesn't come without objections.

In fact, similar housing plans for the 2.1 acre parcel of land were both turned away in 2007 and 2014.

"It's a little bit scaled down," said Ng, referring to the current proposal. "The previous proposals were also for apartments, but this is for lower intensity. It's single story and two story, but with a single story closer to the railroad, so what's difficult about this property is that it's adjacent to a railroad and there's industrial uses to the north and residential uses to the south."

According to the City, both earlier plans were denied due to objections from neighboring businesses, who feared negative impacts the housing would bring.

"This part of Santa Maria is a little bit unique. It's changed over time.  A generation ago, it was mostly industrial, but it's evolved over time and become more residential," said Ng. "This being the last vacant property nudged in between industrial and residential, there could be a case made that either land use would be the better land use."

One business that has concerns is Santa Maria Valley Railroad.

The company operates trains that run right along the border of the property.

A letter sent to the City from Lewis Bribois, a Los Angeles-based law firm representing the railroad, said in part, the project will "place a new residential project adjacent to an rail line with associated noise, odor, and vibration impacts and across from other industrial uses."

In July, the Planning Commission recognized the potential impacts the railroad would have on the apartment complex.

"The Planning Commission approved the project with a couple of conditions," said Ng. "So they added a few conditions for this project to have a 12-foot wall adjacent to the railroad, instead of an 8-foot wall and for the apartments units to have HVAC, so that tenants could close their windows and not be bothered by the potential noise concerns."

The conditions asked by the Planning Commission are being appealed by the developer.