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SLO Council approves 102 room hotel

February 18, 2015

The San Luis Obispo City Council voted 3-2 Tuesday to approve plans to build a 102-room hotel on upper Monterey Street. [Tribune]

Mayor Jan Marx and Councilman Dan Carpenter voted against the development of a hotel behind Pappy McGregor’s Irish Pub. Marx said she had concerns the project would negatively impact the neighborhood.

monterey hotel

 

Residents of the neighboring San Luis Drive area voiced concerns about the size of the hotel, its sterile appearance and its proximity to San Luis Obispo Creek.

Though the council approved the project, it also directed applicants Andrew Firestone and Jess Parker of West Coast Asset Management to enclose some of the parking and to add more landscaping to provide privacy for its neighbors.


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this all great. only thing needed is a new artist.


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If they have to build, what about affordable housing? The answer for the homeless isn’t a shelter or even more case managers. The biggest problem is lack of affordable housing. But why build affordable housing when you can put up a pub? Come on SLO, I keep hoping some one like Dan Carpenter, who talks the talk, will some day walk the walk and approve low income housing in SLO. And I don’t mean $360,000.00 condos like Moylan Terrace. I am talking about affordable for the guy/girl who works at Starbucks, or the bus drivers or even your bank teller. Those who work in SLO without an income of $50,000.00 a year cannot afford to live here. But again, what city council member is going to vote for growth? SLO council members seem to okay office buildings and homes going for $600K plus. What about a $250K home? Let’s see a few of those go up, and a couple apartments complexes for those how can’t afford to buy. No, they go for a pub or they take the easy way out and just vote no with no solutions. Come on Mayor, do something. Come on Dan. Stop your philosophizing and address the problem. Lack of affordable housing.


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Not many can afford to build affordable housing these days.

Have any idea what the permits and fees are for new construction?

The cost of land, property taxes, etc?


Developers wouldn’t be able to stay in business if they built something they didn’t have a shot of making a profit on.

They don’t invest in projects to lose $$, just as the rest of us don’t go to work to lose $.


What is needed and what someone can make a profit on are two different things.

Developers are business people, if it doesn’t pencil out, it doesn’t go.


I’m assuming this property is zoned commercial, that would also prohibit homes from being located there.


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In a community like SLO with very high land values, extremely high permit and impact fees there can be no such thing as “affordable housing”. If you want to have workforce housing for lower wage earners or first time buyers it has to be “subsidized housing”. If everyone would just quit using the term “affordable” connected with any kind of housing in this area, I think we could have a more pragmatic discussion. Just my opinion.


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Hooray! the drought in San Luis Obispo is over! More water usage and more traffic! Great planning (not)!


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Jorge,

Not past tense, Santa Margarita is still giving it up every year. A great giveaway to the City of SLO by a past Board of Supervisors that were either asleep at the switch or just didn’t give a rip about Santa Margarita. A shame for sure.


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And to insult to injury, the talk is to connect Santa Margarita to the Atascadero Mutual Water District. Of course this will only be for emergencies or will it be emerging change?


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Great post Jorge,

Anyone think there is a connection between the taking of Santa Margaritas allotted water(200 acre feet per year) in permit 7253, the lack of willing/paying participants in the Naci water project, the on going drought(which has Naci at 17% of capacity, Salinas at at 18%) and the new north county water control district?

Follow the money…


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Excellent post NCM,

Permit 7253, was intentionally pulled from the SLO County by the SRWCB, for “lack of diligence”. I asked for the entire permit and all the correspondence back and forth between the the state and SLO county. And it is damning to say the least. Think anyone in the county staff would care to defend that taking today? Me thinks not…

It was not the BOS who gave it away, the county staff did and because of that the “only applicant” waiting for the 200 acre foot allotment, now has control and use of that water. The city of SLO which has no reliable water supplies of it’s own, inside the village reserve lines. Why else would they have to secure every outside water source in the unincorporated county? Why are they so insistent on forming a new north county water district to control all new and existing wells?


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I don’t agree completely with your statement that county staff gave the allotment away. The fault for the giveaway falls directly in the lap of the BOS. And the Supervisor from District 5 was a resident of Santa Margarita at the time all of that happened. What a travesty and insult to the members of the community that he supposedly represented.


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NCM,

Don’t know if the BOS was complicit in it at all, but I do know the if county staff had signed and filed the documents on time as requested it would never had happened. Moot point…

I do not blame David Blakey at all as he was instrumental in securing another well for the community in a great time of need, but do question county staff who let this play out and let a redi source evaporate, when questioned by me and others including CSA 23 board members, current staff claimed “what difference does it make at this time?” I always question those who manage and implement agency funds and steer those monies.

Santa margarita uses around 300 acre feet of water each year and if it could have exercised that 200 foot allotment even in a trade, such as being done now with the Naci water, there would be no need for any “emergency intertie” to either Naci or State water. Which today county staff claims is greatly needed.


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This passed the ARC? Who got money from these guys? Can’t wait to see the lovely public art – how about a plain black sheet? My condolences to the neighbors. More revenue, more commercialization of what was once a nice area. Too bad.


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Perhaps the lack of architectural interest makes it less expensive to build.


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What an eyesore for the people who live in the San Luis Drive area, my condolences, be careful who you vote for!


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Very unattractive.


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Looks like something you would see on one of those “house boat” shows where people live full time. They build a structure of boxes that maximizes living space. The proposed hotel design looks bad now. It’ll look HORRIBLE in 20 years time. Twenty years from now people will drive by and say, “Oooh, look at that. What an ugly 2015 era design. What were people thinking back then?!”


Scott


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I wonder what comment Sam Blakeslee will have on the addition of this hotel in regards to his concern for the Diablo Canyon evacuation plan?


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Santa Margarita gave up 200 acre-feet of water to SLO so there you go..


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Actually Jorge, it was taken from SM and given by the SRWCB to the only waiting applicant the city of SLO…

Of course none of the controlling players on SLO county staff at that time are still around. They are enjoying their huge pensions and totally unaccountable.


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