SLO County asks landowner to shut down ‘Totally Epic’ campground on property
A recent San Luis Obispo County code enforcement hearing about a Cambria campground explored what happens to residents who offer camping spaces on their land without having the proper permits.
At the end of the 90-minute hearing Aug. 5, code enforcement hearing officer Stephen Underwood told Cambria landowner Michael “Buddy” Campo that the rustic campground the Iraq war veteran had created on his commercially zoned property on a hill above Cambria’s historic East Village area isn’t legal.
During the hearing, the county asked Campo stop the operation of his property as a campground within 30 days and remove all illegal electrical, plumbing and gas connections.
“We asked that he not be allowed to operate the campground even if he has begun the permitting process,” county counsel Ben Dore wrote in an email on Monday.
The county also asked Campo stop using cargo containers for human habitation and remove them from his property within 30 days, and required him to submit a permit for his deck within 30 days.
Dore wrote that the county and Campo are “to work together in good faith during the permitting process.”
During the hearing, Dore also asked that Underwood order Campo to remove any advertising for the campground.
“We don’t have a final, signed order yet and won’t know until we do exactly what the hearing officer will order,” Dore wrote.
“We didn’t ask the hearing officer to take any action on the fines that were previously imposed,” the counsel wrote. “Since Mr. Campo did not challenge those fines within the appeal period, they still stand.”
At that time, the fines totaled $12,600.
Campo does have recourse, Underwood said, such as applying for the permits that are available to him or filing a legal challenge to the ruling in San Luis Obispo County Superior Court.
If Campo has to shut down before he can get the permits, he told Underwood, those options won’t help him provide for himself and his 11-year-old son, Geoffrey.
Although Campo has had another Cambria business for years, the third-generation Cambrian told The Tribune after the hearing that the tree care service isn’t a good fit for him right now —so the campground is his primary source of income.
Cambria landowner clashes with SLO County planners
Campo advertised his campground, named Totally Epic, on Hipcamp.com, a site that describes itself as a “comprehensive resource for discovering and booking unique outdoor stays including tent camping, RV parks, cabins, treehouses and glamping.”
According to Campo’s Hipcamp.com listing, his campground includes eight camping sites on three secluded acres, bathroom facilities and a community barbecue, fire pit and open play area. There’s also a live oak grove to one side and an old-growth eucalyptus grove to the other, the listing says.
The campground also has graded campsites with picnic tables, a small pond and a 3,500-gallon water tank filled with water that Campo has trucked in and treated with a Culligan system. His home is connected to Cambria municipal water, but he said he’s not using any of that for the campground.
The rate per night for Totally Epic is $100 for up to four guests; one site can accommodate 12 guests, according to the listing.
That campground has inspired a long, contentious battle between Campo and county planners and code enforcement officer that has included onsite disputes at 2075 Main St. and an Oct. 20 inspection by those officers and San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office deputies and notices of violations.
The latest step was the nuisance abatement hearing on Aug. 5.
According to a report filed July 27 and read at the hearing by enforcement officer Nick Forester, violations found at Campo’s property in October included:
• An unpermitted cabin with sleeping facilities, a television and a kitchen with microwave and sink;
• An unpermitted bathroom structure built on a flatbed trailer that contained a toilet and shower;
• A deck built without a permit; and
• Unpermitted cargo containers, one of which had an occupant in it at the time of the inspection.
According to the report, there were various unpermitted electrical, water and gas connections, including an orange extension cord stretched across bare ground from the property’s primary residence into an area with vegetation, trees and remnants of a previous wildfire.
A separate extension cord stretched from that residence through vegetative material, a burned-out area and a forested area, ending at a cargo container on property’s northern edge, the report said.
A houseless friend of Campo’s occupied the container briefly, he said at the hearing.
The report also said that Campo doesn’t have the proper permits to rent campsites or operate a campground or recreational vehicle park on the property.
Unpermitted camping on vacant or occupied San Luis Obispo County property isn’t allowed.
Camping facilities needed across SLO County
Engineer Paul Reichart of Cambria told Underwood he began advising Campo pro bono on the day before the hearing, when he learned of the situation.
Reichart said he’s known Campo for 10 or 15 years, and called him “a good guy in the community.”
Reichart acknowledged that the property owner is “a little bit ahead of his time. “He did jump the gun a little” in opening the campground before he had the permits to do so or there was an ordinance in place permitting that kind of activity, the engineer said of Campo.
Reichart explained that Cambria, like other areas in the county, is having a problem with people setting up camp illegally along Highway 1, by Shamel Park and on residential streets.
He added that “there’s an overriding need for overnight camping (facilities) in this county.”
At the hearing, Reichart told Underwood that many counties in California already have ordinances that allow some level of camping on private lands, but since one doesn’t yet exist in San Luis Obispo County, not even the possibility of a draft ordinance could affect Underwood’s decision, he said.
Emotions run high after code enforcement hearing
The Aug. 5 hearing was obviously a difficult, painful and emotional experience for Campo.
Later, when The Tribune asked for his statement, the property owner wrote via text that “I’ve always loved this community. I love Cambria, and I love the Central Coast.”
“After combat, all I wanted to do was to come home, heal, build a family and build a cool business,” he wrote.
The single dad wrote that his property in Cambria, and especially a one-acre level spot called The Flat, “has been my passion, my art, and it has been my place of peace up until the bureaucracy of SLO County stepped in and has done absolutely everything to crush me.”
“I feel that it is a great tragedy that this county turns good people into criminals,” he wrote.
Campo lamented about “the things we miss out on in our community because creative, passionate people are given endless red tape. I had a clear misconception that I had some liberty and opportunity here in this county to create something special. That seems to be a crime now.”
Supervisor John Peshong said he met Campo through a shared acquaintance, liked him and wanted to “help him get through the system, meet the safety standards and find common ground with code enforcement.
“I’ll just going to keep trying,” the supervisor added. “I want to help get Buddy completely legal, safe and following the ordinances.”
SLO County supervisors look for legal path for campgrounds
San Luis Obispo County supervisors have begun the process to see how county residents could advertise their private-property camping facilities online and then legally rent out those facilities, Supervisor Bruce Gibson wrote in a series of emails responding to queries from The Tribune.
Such a process can be especially complicated for properties in the coastal zone, which also falls under the jurisdiction of the California Coastal Commission.
Gibson explained that San Luis Obispo County does have “a provision in the land-use ordinance to allow some amount of camping in certain land-use categories” such as parcels zoned for agriculture.
“To permit that, the land owner needs to go through a fairly extensive permit process with public hearing,” he wrote, adding that “at this point, we don’t have a specific Hipcamp-related ordinance.”
Peschong introduced the concept to his peers a couple of months ago, he said in an Aug. 6 phone interview.
The supervisors discussed the issue, noting that there were “a number of Hipcamps operating within the county,” Peschong said, but county ordinances are “silent” about those kind of camping ventures.
The county Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to ask staff “to bring an ordinance back to the supervisors,” he said, so they can consider it. “My hope is that we can get it done here shortly…to get them all to be legal, have a process set up we can use to bring them into compliance.”
He said he didn’t know when that would happen, however.
Gibson said he believes the supervisors will consider putting the issue “on the priority list” when staff presents that list in November.
This story was originally published August 17, 2021 at 2:43 PM.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that property owner Michael “Buddy” Campo faces fines totally $126,000. The correct amount is $12,600.
