The Santa Barbara County Planning Commission voted to accept a piping company’s application to build a new facility east of Highway 101 in Orcutt after agreeing that existing zoning might be antiquated. 

Steve Penza of Famcon Pipe & Supply proposed an 11,040-square-foot commercial building and an approximately 40,000-square-foot uncovered, outdoor area for sales and storage on 4 acres along Founders Avenue near Santa Maria Way.

To move forward, the project would need a General Plan Amendment and rezoning since the land had been designated Highway Commercial, envisioning a hotel and a gas station would be developed to support the Santa Maria Elks/Unocal Event Center. Instead, the applicant proposed the sites be designated for General Commercial and G-3 zoning to allow outdoor storage.

Planning staff contended that the project would be unprecedented since it would not be consistent with several aspects of the Orcutt Community Plan, initially adopted in 1997. The applicant disagreed, noting that the area’s circumstances remain unique.

The item, which was approved on a 3-1 vote Wednesday, focused on accepting the application. Commissioner C. Michael Cooney voted against it, and Commissioner Vincent Martinez was absent.

 Approval or denial of the proposal will occur as a future meeting after county staff assesses various aspects of the request and oversees an environmental review. 

The Highway Commercial designation has become somewhat obsolete for the area and intent under the Orcutt Community Plan, Fourth District Commissioner Larry Ferini said, noting that no developer had stepped up to build a hotel, coffee shop or gas station in the area.

“We are dealing with an old community plan that I think years ago was not able to contemplate the evolution, if you will, of the neighborhood,” said Ferini, a longtime North County farmer. “The property right now is underutilized, and to me that points to the zoning is not what is needed by the community. I like the idea of this project in particular because it’s not in a high-traffic area.”

Chair John Parke noted the tension between wanting to follow old planning documents versus making sensible decisions based on good overall planning for today’s conditions.

“If we want to support agriculture, we have to support those support facilities,” Parke added. 

Commissioners also noted the development of the nearby Mark Richardson Career/Technical Education Center and Agricultural Farm and the reality of how the Elks Rodeo facility has developed. 

“This is actually a fairly complicated thing,” Second District Commissioner Laura Bridley said.

She and other commissioners pushed for Penza to include neighboring parcels into his final application to avoid spot zoning. 

“As much as I want to support Mr. Penza and his business, I really think for good planning we should try to get the whole chunk of that Key Site 33 in one General Plan (Amendment) application,” Bridley said. 

Before Cooney voted against the item, he suggested that the panel should deny the request so it would be forwarded to the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors for a community plan change. 

“I can’t see moving ahead with the current community plan and just say, ‘Well, things evolved sufficiently so with the addition of the school location we could shoehorn this project in somehow,’” Cooney said.

The changed zoning and land use would give property owners more flexibility, according to the applicant’s planning consultant, David Swenk of Urban Planning Concepts.

“I think everybody’s in general agreement Highway Commercial is antiquated and not really relevant today,” Swenk said. 

In 2006, the land was planned to have a 30,000-square-foot facility for Hope Community Church, which later put the property up for sale. 

Famcon operates in Santa Maria and Oxnard, but has outgrown the Carlotti Drive site, Penza said. Now employing eight people, Penza said he expects to double the number of employees. 

The business provides “a very vital service” to local builders, the agriculture community, public works departments, Caltrans and others by providing piping and related supplies, Swenk said.