New 5-story condo building coming to SLO County beach city. See what’s planned
A new dense multi-story development is getting underway in Grover Beach.
At its Tuesday meeting, the Grover Beach Planning Commission voted 4-1 to approve a new five-story development on the western end of downtown Grover Beach, with vice chair David Swift voting against the project.
Bella Vista Villas, a 20-condo mixed-use building from Empire Development and Construction, will include a pair of affordable units and 900 square feet of commercial space on its second floor on a 0.24-acre undeveloped lot at 261 Rockaway Ave.
By including the affordable units, the project was able to use a state Density Bonus Program to pack 46.25% more units on the parcel than would usually be allowed.
That increase in units pushed the building’s skyline upward, with the building expected to stand 54 feet and 3 inches high. Standing at five stories tall, including the parking and commercial space on the second floor, the building comes in just under the city’s 55-foot height limit.
Grover Beach resident and Empire Development and Construction owner Fred Brilman said he designed the project to meet the community’s needs for more residential and commercial space.
“We moved here in 2019 and we love this community — we’ll be here, as far as we’re concerned, forever,” Brilman said. “We bought this property when it became available in March last year, and we designed the building that you’re looking at from what we found was the applicable zoning, and we, of course, designed it to have as least impact as we could on the neighbors.”
New project pushes skyline upward
On the ground floor, 24 parking spaces will be included for the building’s residents, while the rest of the ground floor will be occupied by the commercial space.
The commercial space is likely to be occupied by a gym, but could be occupied by any business that fits the space, according to the staff report.
Swift said he had concerns about the commercial space if the gym requires a membership, which he said would violate the city’s visitor-serving requirement.
Community development director Megan Martin contested that “visitor-serving” means serving any member of the public, including both tourists and local residents, so a membership is not relevant to the space’s viability.
All units, including the two included affordable units for very-low-income households, will include private balconies, according to the staff report.
An elevator that will not access the rooftop is included in the project plans, and won’t break the roofline because it won’t serve higher than the final story, Martin said.
Qualifying for the state Density Bonus Program also allowed the project to request a waiver of the city’s building transparency development standard, which requires 40% of the ground floor to be made up of transparent facades, according to the staff report.
Critics cite environmental issues, zoning consistency
During public comment, several residents said they had concerns about the project’s impact both on the project site and on the nearby neighborhood.
Former mayor Debbie Peterson, who owns a property adjacent to the project site, said the developer failed to evaluate the site’s environmental conditions before they removed trees and other foliage from the project site without a permit, claiming that its eucalyptus trees were a natural habitat for monarch butterflies, red-tailed hawks and great horned owls.
Martin said while Grover Beach does not require permits for the removal of trees from a privately-held property and only requires encroachment permits when the removal would impede public right-of-way
“The tree removal did begin without the city’s permission, however, we stopped work immediately,” Martin said. “Once we received the complaint, we requested a nesting bird survey, a monarch butterfly survey and a complete bio survey was done.”
“There were no findings of any sensitive or endangered species on the property,” Martin continued.
Peterson and several other residents who spoke during public comment expressed frustration with the project’s location and fit with the neighborhood, with many of their concerns centering on the loss of natural view sheds and solar power access.
“I’d ask you to consider the rights of the pre-existing neighbors who, while the project applicants have invested a lot of money, have invested more over the years in their properties, most of which would qualify as affordable housing also, so you’ll be stealing from 30 residential units that are primarily affordable housing to create two,” Peterson said. “I’m going to assert again that this project is nothing more than a luxury condo development dressed up as a mixed use with affordable housing, but in reality, it’s neither.”
The project still requires a building permit from the city, and can be appealed until the appeal window closes on Sept. 12 at 5 p.m., Martin said.
As the project’s building permit and construction plan have not been reviewed by the city yet, a tentative construction date is unknown at this time, Martin said.
This story was originally published September 4, 2025 at 12:08 PM.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story listed the wrong location for the commercial space. It will be located on the second floor.
