LAPAC Proposes 116-Home Development in Los Alamos
“I’m all for it,” John Morley, owner of Art Brut Gallery and co-owner of Café Quackenbush, says without hesitation. “We need a better image, and if Los Alamos doesn’t change it’s going to become a ghost town.”
Los Alamos is a small town ten miles north of Los Olivos whose surrounding land is made up of vegetables farms, vineyards, and ranches. After the ten-year population growth goals of the 1994 Los Alamos Community Plan went unfulfilled, the Los Alamos Planning Advisory Committee (LAPAC) formed in August of 2006. The 1994 plan fell within the existing urban boundary line. LAPAC is now proposing a 116-home development plan called Los Alamos Commons, nine acres of which fall within the existing town boundary line. LAPAC has already held several open public meetings with residents of Los Alamos. Plans include a public park, a community center, and services such as doctor’s offices.
Reaction to Los Alamos community development efforts depends on who you talk to. The 2000 census reported Los Alamos to have a population under 1,400. While local ranchers may want it to stay that way—much of the land proposed to be used for the Commons is currently zoned agricultural--other Los Alamos citizens see potential for Los Alamos to be revitalized. “I’m a business owner, so two hundred more people wouldn’t bother me,” says Café Quackenbush chef Jesper Johansson, sweeping his arm toward the empty lots next door and across the street. “These empty lots are right on Los Alamos’ main street. There’ve been promises for years that they’re going to be developed, but nothing has happened.”
Los Alamos, Spanish for “the cottonwoods,” was founded in 1876 by John Bell and James Shaw. Both men, who were originally from San Francisco, donated a half mile of the adjoining 14,000 acre ranches they’d bought from original Mexican Land Grants to create the town. Los Alamos functioned as a stage coach stop on the route between San Louis Obispo and Santa Barbara. Route 101 used to run right through town on Bell Street; Los Alamos citizens have enjoyed an unusual level of tranquility and safety since 101 was realigned in the 50s to run past the town instead of through it. However, the decrease in traffic also led to an economic decline from which “Little L.A,” or “Lost Almost,” has never fully recovered.
Over the last two decades, the land surrounding Los Alamos has gone the way of much of the land of Santa Barbara and Santa Maria counties and darkened with wine grape fields. Tasting rooms, Art Brut Gallery, and Café Quackenbush followed soon after, providing an upscale alternative to saloon- or antique store-hopping, which had been the main sources of entertainment for visitors. The 2004 hit movie “Sideways”, nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award, put Los Alamos on the map with the rest of the Santa Ynez Valley (of which Los Alamos is seen to be a part in spite of the fact that it’s technically in the Santa Maria area), creating a tourist influx that has yet to abate.
Yet the critical mass of people the Commons would house might change the appeal of a town known for just the sort of “quaint” and “sleepy” atmosphere only small populations can create. Does Los Alamos, home to the historic Union Hotel, an attraction since its inception in 1880 that hosts an annual Civil War Christmas Ball replete with historic re-enactors, have a chance at development that won’t render the town just another “’burb” that has lost its former charm?
In the meetings LAPAC has held thus far, townspeople indicated a preference for the Los Alamos to maintain its small-town feel. But citizens are also chomping at the bit for more retail services, and a recent economic study revealed that Los Alamos wouldn’t have the population to support them without the addition of four hundred new households to the region. The Commons would add two hundred new residences at most.
Complicating matters is the fact that the land the Commons would use does not fall within the existing urban boundary line is zoned agricultural and made up of class 1 and 2 (the best) soil. Changing the way that land is used would be very difficult, as policies are in place to discourage development on “agricultural land.”