The parties involved with the Village at Los Carneros residential development in Goleta are asking the city if they can remove nine parking spaces while adding more bike parking and landscaping.
Goleta’s director of planning and development, Jennifer Carman, will make the final call about whether to amend the 465-unit project design as it was approved by the Goleta City Council in February 2015.
The development will be built on a 40-plus-acre site located north and west of Los Carneros Road, just south of Highway 101, on property where businesses such as Allergan once were located.
Peoples’ Self Help Housing is asking Carman to approve a development plan amendment to improve circulation for trash pick-up, add a landscaping buffer for a basketball court (losing five parking spaces), add a mailbox kiosk and bike parking, add a loading zone required for accessible parking (losing another parking space), and a modification to allow nine fewer spaces than what was initially approved by council.
Goleta officials last year approved zoning and General Plan changes and a final environmental impact report.
Carman said the proposed modifications came from fine-tuning architectural and site plans.
“This is a change associated with the parking component of the Peoples’ Self Help project,” she said in an email. “There are no changes being made to the size, design or placement of the buildings. The reduction in parking is being requested to address site planning issues that were not known at the time of council approval.”
The developers also submitted parking-usage information from other sites that showed 146 total parking spaces would be enough to meet demand.
The Village at Los Carneros is a reincarnation of a former development that was never built, even though it was approved by the City Council in February 2008. That iteration proposed just 275 units.
The development now includes a mix of single-family homes, duplexes, triplexes, four-plexes, town homes, condominium flats and apartments — about 70 of which will be reserved as affordable housing via Peoples’ Self Help Housing.
The project will also feature a neighborhood park, bike path, private recreation center, swimming pools, open space and more.
Carman said her decision is appealable to the Goleta Planning Commission up to 10 days after a notice of decision is released.
Anyone interested in this matter is invited to submit written comments regarding the proposed development plan amendment before next Tuesday.
All letters should be addressed to Planning and Environmental Review, 130 Cremona Drive, Suite B, Goleta, CA 93117, attention: Brian Hiefield. Letters must be received by the City Planning and Environmental Review Department.
Carman said current zoning rules allow her to handle these types of requests, the number of which varies. Both 2014 and 2015 saw two such requests for projects, including this one.
— Noozhawk staff writer Gina Potthoff can be reached at gpotthoff@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.