The San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission voted 3-2 Thursday to allow conversion of Aloha RV Storage at Highway 101 and Olivera Avenue in Nipomo into a self-storage rental facility with 30 buildings on 10.5 acres.

As approved, the project will include 2,115 self-storage units in 18 single-story and 10 two-story buildings with a total of 306,531 square feet of space. It will also include a 1,100-square-foot caretaker's residence and a 1,000-square-foot garage and equipment-storage building.

Applicant Alex Ramey, who owns Aloha RV Storage, could not be reached for comment.

According to El-Jay Hansson, who represents Area 6 on the South County Advisory Council, the project first came before the council in the spring of 2005.

“At that time we thought it was a horrible project,” she said. “The buildings were ugly. We wanted them to make it look nice and we'd put our stamp of approval on it. Naturally, nobody wanted to see that type of complex go in there - a park would have been nice - but it's zoned industrial. There's not much you could do.”

The project at 910 Guadalupe Road is on industrially zoned land in the planning area designated by the county as the village of Callender Garrett.

During the review of the project, Caltrans identified potential operational and safety issues at Highway 1 and Olivera Avenue, and requested that a left-turn lane be constructed at the intersection. The applicant was also required to keep the landscaping mature and maintained, according to Brian Pedrotti of the county's Planning and Building Department.

Advertisement

“We've had issues with landscape dying on some projects and not being maintained,” Hansson said.

According to the staff report prepared for the Planning Commission, landscaping will be drought-tolerant and will be used to screen the storage buildings from Highway 1. Plants included for the project will include lilac, toyon, coastal live oaks and Mexican blue palms.

A condition in that staff report also calls for the completion of all stormwater management, landscaping, fencing, wall and road improvements before the final inspection of the first phase of the project.

In that first phase, 14 storage-unit buildings will house 990 storage units with a total of 154,000 square feet of usable space.

Todd Cralley can be reached at 347-4580 or tcralley@santa

mariatimes.com.

July 13, 2007