New housing development to add more than 60 units in SLO County town. See plan
A new development is looking to bring more than 60 units to southern San Luis Obispo County — and it’s using a mix of housing approaches to get there.
On Thursday, the developers behind the new housing project planned for 655 Juniper St. made their pitch to the county Planning Commission, around three years removed from the project’s inception and approval by the Nipomo Community Services District.
The new development will consist of 55 single-family residential units and nine junior accessory dwelling units and is supposed to be developed in seven phases.
However, while all five Planning Commission members said they were supportive of the project’s goals and overall layout, the fine-tuning of some details sent the project back to the planning stage for now.
Commissioner Anne Wyatt said once the finer details are ironed out, the project will result in the type of housing that’s badly needed in San Luis Obispo County.
“This is the kind of thing we need to see — some reasonable percentage of affordable homes as a component of projects built by developers along with the market rate homes,” Wyatt said. “I’m really thrilled that this has been brought before us today.”
What will Nipomo housing project include?
In total, the project’s developer, 665 Juniper, LLC, is looking to bring a total of 62 homes to Nipomo between its conventional single-family homes and a handful of JADUs.
Of those 62 units, 38 are expected to be market-rate residential units configured in two-story buildings, along with five very low-income deed-restricted single-family units configured in two-story buildings, according to the staff report.
Those five units of affordable housing, which are expected to come in at three bedrooms each, allowed the project to use the state’s density bonus law to exceed the lot’s allowable density by around 46.25% and push up to the setbacks, according to the staff report.
As work progresses on the project, the homes in the development’s seven phases will be released for sale or rent as they are completed, according to the staff report.
Very low-income San Luis Obispo County residents who make up to 50% of the county’s median income can see a maximum rent of $1,570 or maximum sale price of $182,000 for the deed-restricted units, according to the staff report.
Conventional market-rate units in the two-story triplex and quadplex designs will range between 1,486 and 2,186 square feet, while the JADUs are expected to come in at 418 square feet, according to the staff report.
Rentals are expected to operate on month-to-month or annual leases, according to the staff report.
Development is expected to progress deeper into the lot in phases, starting closest to Juniper Street, which is where a new private road will be constructed.
Project to rectify grading issue before building
The project’s concept of renting or selling units as they come online is where the small snag in the approval process comes into play.
As is, the project’s site is uneven and requires grading and infill work to level the lot. The applicant and county Planning and Building Division staff disagreed on how and when the grading can proceed, with staff asking the developer to complete all lot grading during the building permit phase before any units are built due to existing county building code requirements.
Jamie Jones, who works with Kirk Consulting and represented the applicant, said the grading plan is supposed to work in phases with the development partly to avoid excessive truck trips to bring infill material to the site, opting instead to stockpile and redistribute the cut material from grading as it progresses with the development of home.
“If we don’t do it this way, we’re going to be importing 44,000 cubic yards from who knows where,” Jones said. “We’ll have to figure out those sites. It’s going to be very expensive.”
After some deliberation, the Planning Commission voted unanimously to approve the tract map and building plan, with the condition that the grading plan will be brought back to the staff to find a way to make it work during the grading application process.
“It sounds like if we wait for things to line up perfectly, we’re just delaying all these projects, which is not something we want to do,” commissioner Mariam Shah said.
