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SLO County supervisors approve housing project lots in Los Osos

November 1, 2023

By KAREN VELIE

The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted 3-2 to approve creation of 98 lots for a future housing development on Pecho Valley Road in Los Osos, with supervisors Bruce Gibson and Jimmy Paulding dissenting.

The Anastasi Development Company owns the nearly 20-acre project site located near the transition where Los Osos Valley Road becomes Pecho Valley Road. Scott Anastasi plans to build 97 single-family residences, of which 15 will be reserved for low and moderate-income households.

Plans for this development have been winding through the system for more than 30 years. The project’s tract map was approved by the SLO County Board of Supervisors on Dec. 11, 1990.

Gibson and Paulding voted against the project, saying there is not enough water for the project in Los Osos. However, the water company filed a will-serve letter saying there is water.

In addition, the developer’s plans include contributions to water resources through the development of a new community supply well. Anastasi built a well for the entire community when he built the Monarch Grove subdivision in early 2000’s.

 


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I interpret this as a move towards state water. Here’s how it will work. They’ll build these house, then realize the aquafer is in severe overdraft, which then necessitates the need for the only other water source, which is state water. All of Los Osos will pay for a pipeline for state water even though the water is only required by these 98 new houses.


Mom and Pop can’t build a house in Los Osos, but the rich can because they can afford to buy new washing machines for bunches of people. A big out-of-town developer can build 98 house despite severe water issues. I keep wondering how stuff like this can happen; don’t our leaders realize how stupid and corrupt they look?


9

“Gibson and Paulding voted against the project, saying there is not enough water for the project”, so should we expect them to vote the same way on the Dana Reserve?, bigger project, same county, same water issue.


21

The water in Los Osos comes from wells. The water for the Dana Reserve project is being pulled out of someone’s you-know-what.


0

at least it’s not a Ryan Pettitit/Adam Hill collaboration (hopefully).


20

I never thought I’d be on the same side as Brucie or Jimmy. I’m shocked! I am also very disappointed in the other supervisors.


-1

They have a few years before state water arrives. Plenty of time to clear the land of evidence of snail activity.


6

BUILD BUILD BUILD even though you have no water,or affordable power not to mention or you don’t mention the requirements for low and medium eligability which most of the residents fit into


11

A well does not contribute to water resources by quantity. There is a quantity of water in a groundwater basin. Adding a well puts another straw in the groundwater basin to suck water out but does not provide additional water to the basin or to the district’s water supply.


26

A “will serve” letter from a business that gets paid to do so… Hm, is anyone really buying that? Third party water rights, sustainability, and environmental impact tests all need to pass before this actually happens. Sorry, not sorry. Welcome to the future.


9

What never seems to be discussed during these talks about water shortage is the most natural and economical, eco-friendly answer to a more stable and sustainable water supply. While not to be relied upon for unlimited expansion, we could at least provide some of the much-needed affordable homes at an affordable rate.


Bring back the BEAVERS. They were a part of the ecosystem here up until about the 1960’s, when they were removed for purposes of land “improvements”. However, by taking that keystone species out of our watersheds, the main accomplishment was to speed water off the land and straight to the ocean, without sinking in and replenishing our aquifers. Also, straight into town on the way, where it has caused serious flooding issues. This has led, over time to far less biodiversity that thrived in the wetlands created by the dams, the fire breaks and refuges went away, things became, over time, hotter and drier and our aquifers became threatened almost every year.


Another very viable alternative is to build BDA’s, short for Beaver Dam Analogs. Once those are doing the job, without the unpredictable actions of beavers themselves, it can be decided whether to introduce the creatures themselves into an environment. Mitigating unwanted aspects of beaver activities has never been easier and should that choice be made, they work for free.


The riparian environments that their wetlands created not only constantly soaks into the aquifer, but also raises the humidity, which lowers fire danger, and has an overall cooling effect in the surrounding areas. Wildlife of all kinds benefit from this. And since water is trapped and slowed, less rushes straight into town, thus helping to lessen flooding events.


We could certainly use all of those effects a lot more than the cost of yet another extremely expensive and high polluting desal or “toilet-to-tap” project. The one in Cambria has been sitting there, costing a fortune, since 2014 without providing a drop of water and unable to be permitted due to the many environmental hazards it poses. Were it to run. the bills for operation would be astronomical, in any event.


7

Follow the money in Cambria on why the unsustainable water project was introduced and continues to be processed. Cambrians don’t seem smart enough to know they are being bamboozled while the CCSD Board continues to increase all service rates. I thought people in Cambria were smarter than throwing their money away. Cambrians, want to buy London Bridge? ROFLOL!!!!


7

any bridge, not London Bridge.


2

Not really all that funny. The ratepayers of Oceano are about to have the same game run on them, even with Cambria as an example of just what to expect. People keep falling for this crap. Especially those who are new to the area. When an area then becomes too expensive for many who currently reside there, the rents are raised and the wealthier move in. Real estate agents, etc., make a killing.


Those who have been in Cambria long enough to know, have been through this game before. Most of them fully realized that a new water source would again be over-exploited for development, and we would quickly be back where we started, and town would be just that much less affordable. However, without our expressed permission, CCSD board members proceeded with the project, which, predictably, ran far over budget, and now sits inoperable and yet ratepayers continue to pay for it.


One thing it would accomplish would be to create precedencies for building desal in:


1. A flood plain


2.The environment of an endangered species


3.Directly adjacent to a State Campground


4.Within the Monterey Marine Sanctuary


Many more details seem to support this, IMHO. And as we all know, money talks. I have heard rumors that there are plans available for many more “Desal Opportunities on the Central Coast” in the files of the County Planning Commission. Without the Board of Supervisor’s permission, that mess in San Simeon Creek could never have happened. It astonishes me that anyone still goes for these scams. Even Santa Barbara couldn’t afford to run the desal facility they built. Certainly, Morro Bay could not. How could little Cambria support such a thing?


Be aware.


6

What is up with your CCSD Board members? Seems like at least 3 ran and got elected saying they would support a sustainable water project but they are just as bad as the previous CCSD Board members. Who is making money off of the CCSD Board decisions, especially the unsustainable water project? The decisions made on the unsustainable water project need to be investigated from the beginning of the proposed project including the decision-makers, consultants, clients/associates of decision-makers (past and present), etc.


5

I could not agree with you more. However, no one seems interested in launching that investigation. I happen to know that at more than one time during the earlier stages of this now decade old debacle, individuals contacted the FBI regarding the very suspicious smell of this project and, although they never comment on ongoing investigations, it is quite obvious at this point they declined to engage. I would have thought that they would have been the appropriate agency to contact, given the interstate nature of the financing, etc.


As for the board members themselves, it is a mixed bag. I think what it comes down to for them is a need to “fit in” with the other members and a fear of taking legal action against the wealthy entities that financed, designed and built the useless mess we now pay for. Not to mention all those who stand to profit if we had enough water to continue building on all their “spec” lots. Board members tend to tell us we are “stuck” with the facility and that we will need it if our current water sources fail. Usually, a water shortage happens within a few months and this facility requires several months to even provide needed water, at an astronomical price and not enough to begin to supply the homes we have, let alone the further development immediately proposed once the project was under way. Initially, they promised up and down it would only be used for current needs.


Those people who supported this idiocy like to refer to the rest of us as “against water”. HA! Because we are against development that exceeds our ability to supply water in an environmentally safe and cost-effective way. The irony is that had we gone with literally any of the other much cheaper and far more environmentally compatible projects, we would have more water right now. But perhaps not enough to continuously build out. They imagine that we could build even more of the desal/toilet to tap monstrosities to supply all the water they want. And they and their money helped to convince people not to oppose the one we have.


There is a fortune in convincing coastal communities that desal will solve their problems. Obviously, it will not.


3

Are you saying that the people who support and push this project have actually prevented Cambria from getting water? And there were cheaper and more viable water solutions they rejected in favor of the desal/toilet to tap project? The question is: who is making money from the continued processing of this project?


0

I get your point and at the same time you will participate in sending billions of dollars to rebuild Palestine. Yes we can discount comments like this by saying the word extreme, but after the wordsmithing is over you and I will send the money as previously stated.


-6