After nearly five hours of presentations, testimony and discussion, a divided Santa Barbara County Planning Commission put off a decision Wednesday on a proposed hotel at Mattei’s Tavern, the landmark property in Los Olivos.
In a 3-2 vote, with Commissioner Daniel Blough and Joe Valencia voting no, the commission continued the discussion to Jan. 30, primarily for time to gather more information on traffic patterns, parking and wastewater treatment.
Chairman C. Michael Cooney said he wanted more time only because of his lack of understanding on how the wastewater system would work, not because he doesn’t support the proposed Inn at Mattei’s Tavern.
“There is a great deal of support for this project,” he said. “But the community has spoken about their concerns with safety, and we need to address them.”
“We are not considering cutting down the scope of the project,” Cooney added.
Commissioner Cecilia Brown said she supports the project and thought it to be well designed. But she also thought the plan was “a bit much” for the site and asked the applicant to create a less bulky version of the proposed cottages in which guests would stay.
After four years working on the development, Matthew Allen, who represents the developers, said they hope to see the project built as soon as possible.
The hotel and restaurant were opened by Felix Mattei in 1886 to serve stagecoach and railroad travelers, and the Mattei family owned the property until 1963.
The tavern building became a county historic landmark in November 2010.
In comparison to a total of 16,600 square feet of buildings on the 6.6 acres now, the developers, Santa Rita Land and Vine, propose to have more than three times that much, in a plan that uses the gardens and vacant land behind Mattei’s but also adds a vacant parcel to the west, near Alamo Pintado Creek.
The tavern building itself is about 8,150 square feet, according to county planning staff, and the new “cottage-style” hotel would total about 61,800 square feet in various buildings scattered around the property.
The plan calls for one- and two-story guest cottages, a small gym, spa, pool, banquet and meeting room, a new reception building and various smaller buildings for housekeeping and maintenance.
The restaurant in the tavern building, vacated this year by The Brothers Restaurant, would increase its capacity to 140 seats, including interior and exterior seating.
Also proposed are 156 parking spaces, including three loading spaces. According to county planning staff, 135 of those spaces would be provided in three locations: 63 in the “north parking lot” that would be built on the public right-of-way of Railroad Avenue, which the developers are asking the county to abandon; 62 spaces in a “south parking lot” on a previously abandoned portion of Jonata Street; and 10 spaces on an access road along the western side of the hotel.
The Rev. Randall Day, rector of St. Mark’s-in-the-Valley Episcopal Church immediately south of Mattei’s, said the church does not object to the proposal.
Describing St. Mark’s as the only property that shares the entire block with the proposed project, he said, “no other single property will be impacted by any changes in parking or traffic that this project may bring.”
“We have always known that someday our vacant commercial property neighbor to the north would be developed,” Day said. “We have carefully studied and broadly discussed the environmental impact report, the traffic, parking, water, sewage, density, landscaping and architecture of this proposal.”
“We believe the project to be the highest and best use for the property and the one most consistent with our vision of what the full development of our block should be,” Day continued.
The overwhelming majority of testimony from Santa Ynez Valley residents Wednesday was in support of the project. However, Mark Oliver, president of the Santa Ynez Valley Alliance, said the project has the potential to seriously compound three of the community’s worst problems: highway and road safety, parking and groundwater contamination.
“We recognize the benefit of an appropriate-sized cottage hotel,” he said. “But this is too large. There is too much development for a site that is too heavily constrained and with limited infrastructure.
“The project is not consistent with the community plan and other sections of the comprehensive plan, and the impacts of the project are not fully mitigated,” Oliver added.
Traffic safety, especially access to the busy Highway 154, was a concern raised by several residents, including long-time resident Kelly Gray, who said adding more traffic will increase danger to both residents and visitors alike.
Because of limited sight distance, those intersections are very dangerous, Gray said, and it would be irresponsible to increase traffic.
Failing septic tanks in Los Olivos and the community’s lack of a sewer system were also a common concern for both residents and the commission members.
Los Olivos is an officially designated “special problems area” because of the potential for groundwater contamination by the septic systems of residents and businesses, and the county Public Health Department recently held a public meeting urging the community to take action before state regulators imposed a solution.
The county’s Environmental Health Services and the California Regional Water Quality Control Board want the community to build a wastewater treatment plant to serve at least the downtown core, and they want the hotel to connect to it.
However, if the community’s plan is delayed, the hotel would install its own private aerobic treatment system to treat its wastewater.
For more information about the project, go to http://applications.sbcountyplanning.org/index.cfm and click on the link for “Mattei’s Tavern Inn Development Plan,” or contact county planner John Zorovich at 934-6297 or jzoro@co.santa-barbara.ca.us.