A proposal to initiate environmental review for the draft Los Alamos Community Plan, which would not expand the existing urban boundary, will be considered Tuesday by the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors.

The supervisors are also set to review the community plan, which would exclude a controversial development project known as the Los Alamos Commons.

The project would include 196 new homes, 55,750 square feet of commercial space and 50,000 square feet of self-storage on agriculturally zoned land just to the northwest of Los Alamos' current urban boundary.

The draft plan would also exclude Los Alamos Commons as an alternative in the environmental impact report, because county planning staff stated in the board report that it would be inconsistent with the land-use goals from the Los Alamos Planning Advisory Committee (LAPAC).

The first phase of the revised community plan was 50 percent funded by the applicant for the Commons project, but they declined to pay for the environmental review portion of the process.

An environmental impact report would take at least a year before it would be available for public comment, according to county planning staff.

The LAPAC goals were to encourage the infill of residential and commercial growth within the existing urban boundary as opposed to expanding the zoning distribution.

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The revised Los Alamos Community Plan, which has been in the works since 2006, also includes Bell Street design guidelines to assist developers with the commercial, mixed-use zoning on the main street, and a form-based code to alleviate zoning constraints and streamline the plan policies.

Research showed that the small community of Los Alamos would not be able to support a small retail district on Bell Street without a major, steady increase in tourism. So LAPAC decided to implement a mixed-use zoning that would switch up the historic street with commercial and residential development.

Staff is also recommending that the board approve two relatively minor zoning changes on parcels that border Highway 101.

A parcel on the north side of Highway 101 would be adjusted from commercial-highway to retail- commercial zoning, while a narrow parcel on the eastern end of Bell Street and

adjacent to the highway would change from residential to general-commercial zoning.

The supervisors are scheduled to meet at

9 a.m. Tuesday in the Betteravia Government Center, 511 E. Lakeside Parkway in Santa Maria. More information on the Los Alamos Community Plan can be found online at countyofsb.org.

Sam Womack can be reached at 739-2218 or swomack@santamariatimes.com.

September 21, 2008