County holds hearing about Mountainview Homes project

 

The handful of residents who continue to live at the Foss Mobile Home Park in Solvang expressed concern Jan. 14 about the metamorphosis of the park’s property into Mountainview Homes family mobile park.

More than 15 people attended a meeting held by the county’s planning and development department to discuss the expected environmental impacts of the Mountainview Homes project, which proposes to place 58 family homes manufactured off-site on what used to be the Foss Mobile Home Park, a 5.7 acre low-income senior mobile home park, wedged at 2950 Mission Drive between Highway 246 and Refugio Road. The project includes a community swimming pool, a club house and a park.

 

“When we moved into the park, it was a senior park and low-cost housing,” said current senior resident June Limes. “How did [they] get away from it being a senior park?

“Me being 80-years-old, I don’t want to be with kids running around,” she added. “I can’t see people our age having to put up with something like that. To me this is an environmental issue, too.”

Planning and development planner Brian Tetley said that the department determined that there were no significant environmental impacts, so an environmental impact study was unnecessary.

The impacts that are expected to affect current residents and the environment have been mitigated and solutions have been presented to remedy them, Tetley said.

Some of the impacts included traffic and traffic flow, construction noise, waste from the construction site, proper lighting and air pollution.

 

Joe Duvall, a resident at the park, seemed to disagree and expressed concern about how the county plans to mitigate some of the environmental impacts, such as traffic.

“We don’t need that kind of traffic on Refugio Road,” he said.

The project suggests that there be two access points to enter the park and two egress points to exit the park.

Residents also are concerned about this, claiming that if a fire were to occur it would be a fire trap for many people.

“You have a lot more people going out of the park, approximately two-and-a-half more cars per unit; with all the people going out, how will the fire department get in?” said Gary Skippon, who has been a resident of the park since 1972. “This is going to be a mess.”

 

Residents and neighbors of the trailer park also expressed concern about how the construction noise and added occupancy of the trailer park would affect the presence of livestock.

Other residents are concerned about children’s safety, since many neighborhood kids walk to the Christian Academy or to Santa Ynez Valley Union High School.

Currently, eight senior residents of the old Foss Mobile Home Park remain. When Sri Two LLC, a Santa Barbara based development company, bought the park from the Robert and Margo Gould Family Trust in 2003, more than 40 residents occupied the park.

 

Mountainview Homes will have a maximum of 58 units, with five land parcels reserved for current residents who may choose to stay.

If all eight current residents stay, then the project will be allowed to build only 50 units.

Sri Two agent Stephen Orosz said that none of the residents was kicked out and that Sri Two has tried to accommodate all the residents so they would feel comfortable staying.

“There was no intimidation. No one was forced to move,” he said.

“We made an offer to everyone that if they did want to relocate that we would assist them. We thought it was all done fair and square. With over roughly 35 people taking the offer I don’t think it was any kind of forcing to get them to make a move.”

 

A park resident who asked to remain anonymous contends otherwise.

“Almost everyone who left says they shouldn’t have left, but they felt intimidated,” the resident said.

The project is in the preliminary stages. The Jan. 14 meeting covered the project’s environmental review.

It must still complete a design review; go before the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission for approval and a recommendation to the board of supervisors.

Then the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors will vote on the project’s approval.

Public comment about the environmental review closes on Jan. 22. For more information call county planner Brian Tetley at (805) 934-6589 or visit www.countyofsantabarbara.com.