Concerns over community impacts from new Airport Land-Use Compatibility Plans may prompt the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments Board of Directors to delay a decision on adopting the plans.
The SBCAG board will discuss the plans at its Thursday meeting, which is at the Santa Barbara Board of Supervisors Hearing Room, 105 E. Anapamu St., in Santa Barbara.
“The purpose of this plan is to reduce future risks around the airport,” said Michael Becker, SBCAG director of planning. “It’s only purpose is to influence future land-use decisions around the airport.”
The SBCAG Board of Directors is the Airport Land-Use Commission for the county, and the agency prepared Airport Land-Use Compatibility Plans for the Lompoc, New Cuyama, Santa Maria, Santa Ynez, Vandenberg and Santa Barbara Municipal airports, SBCAG spokeswoman Lauren Bianchi Klemann said.
Draft plans include updated policies focused on noise, safety, airspace protection and overflight notification.
“We know aviation crashes can happen,” Bianchi Klemann said. “Although they are rare, this helps communities plan for future growth and avoid worse case scenarios.”
California law requires SBCAG to develop and implement an airport land-use plan for each general purpose airport, according to a staff report.
The law’s purpose is “to prevent the creation of new noise and safety problems, and to protect public health, safety, and welfare by ensuring the orderly expansion of airports, and the adoption of land-use measures that minimize the public’s exposure to excessive noise and safety hazards.”
The city of Goleta is concerned with the plan’s potential impacts to existing land uses, city spokeswoman Kelly Hoover said.
Goleta supports SBCAG staff’s recommendation to delay adoption of the draft plan “to allow time to find mutually acceptable resolutions to outstanding issues,” Hoover said in an email.
“While the city certainly recognizes the ALUCP’s important role in helping to ensure safety around public use airports, the city does not feel the draft ALUCP is ready for adoption in its present form and requires further analysis,” Hoover continued.
“The city is working with SBCAG to address existing land uses and how they are defined when the city incorporates the ALUCP into the General Plan.”
The plan would render some existing buildings legal, non-conforming, and inhibit owners’ ability to redevelop, according to a staff report.
SBCAG received a letter from Goleta staff identifying several impacted properties throughout Goleta if the city implements the ALUCP or amends the city’s General Plan.
Kristen Miller, president/CEO of the Goleta Chamber of Commerce, said she’s pleased to see a higher level of cooperation and communication between agencies involved.
The Chamber expressed “serious concerns” about the proposed draft plan because it could potentially have negative effects on “several things we care about, including our top commercial and industrial business park, our property values for commercial business and a residential neighborhood,” Miller said.
“This is a tricky situation because the airport sits in the middle of Goleta, but it’s governed by the city of Santa Barbara,” Miller continued. “Things like this should be handled with much more care,”she said, adding, “Hopefully, this is a sign that we will be better at this in the future.”
According to SBCAG’s report, the California Airport Land-Use Planning Handbook said adoption of draft ALUCPs potentials cause the “inadvertent displacement of future land uses within parts of the airport influence areas.”
“The draft ALUCP is proposed guidance from the Airport Land-Use Commission on how to safely develop or redevelop property in close vicinity to public use runways,” airport Director Henry Thompson wrote in a Sept. 3 letter to Goleta City Council. “It would not require the removal or modification of any existing development.”
SBCAG’s Airport land-use plan was adopted in 1981, amended in 1986 and re-printed in 1993, according to a staff report.
A draft airport land-use compatibility plan was prepared in 2012. It was “shelved” until more money could be secured for the California Environmental Quality Act review.
Obtained in 2017, Caltrans grant money allowed SBCAG to hire a consultant to update the plan and conduct a CEQA review.
SBCAG has interactive maps of the airport plans on its website here.
The SBCAG board of directors meeting starts 10 a.m. Thursday
— Noozhawk staff writer Brooke Holland can be reached at bholland@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
