Plan to expand Los Osos mobile home park extended
Monday October 8th, 2007 - 11:00:47 am
Dan Reddell Email
Monday, Oct 8, 2007
Posted on Mon, Oct. 08, 2007
County supervisors ignore county counsel and allow developer to keep Los Osos project alive
Bob Cuddy
The Board of Supervisors this week rejected its county counsel’s emphatic advice and temporarily kept alive a developer’s plan to build on 91 lots in Los Osos using standards developed in the 1990s.
The 45-acre project at Los Osos Valley Road and Broderson Avenue — called Morro Shores — cannot move forward at the moment because of a development moratorium imposed by the Regional Water Quality Control Board.
Virtually all development in Los Osos is on hold until the community builds a sewer. State water quality regulators blame the town’s individual septic tank systems for nitrate pollution of the groundwater and Morro Bay.
The county approved plans for the lots in 1996 and has issued extensions, with the current one due to expire in September 2008.
But when Morro Shores attorney Kenneth Bornholdt asked the county for another extension, to 2013, the planning director said the law is unequivocal: The extension cannot be granted.
With the land idle indefinitely, this may seem like an arcane discussion that should be limited to planners and lawyers. But substantial economic issues lie just beneath the surface.
If the tract map approval expires, the developer will have to start over under new planning restrictions. If he builds before that, he can use older rules in place when the map first was approved, in the mid- 1990s, assuming he fulfills conditions imposed at the time.
So when Bornholdt appealed to the Board of Supervisors, citing different legal sources than County Counsel Jim Lindholm had cited, supervisors sought “wiggle room,” as Chairman Jerry Lenthall put it.
Questioning the court case cited by Lindholm, Lenthall said, “Very few cases hit the nail right on the head.”
Lindholm replied, “Unfortunately, this hits the nail right on the head.”
That led Supervisor Bruce Gibson, whose district includes Los Osos, to vote to deny the extension. Supervisor Jim Patterson backed him. But Lenthall and Supervisors Katcho Achadjian and Harry Ovitt voted to extend it.
Gibson then sought a continuance, and all five supervisors agreed, with no date set.
That will give Bornholdt time to talk over his arguments with Lindholm, supervisors said.
Achadjian said later that the board needs time to look into the fairness of whatever action it takes.
Gibson agreed that the developers “got trapped in a bad situation that is not of their making.”
Achadjian added that “the law is not all that black and white,” and he thought the developer’s attorney made some good arguments.
The 3-2 decision to disregard the county counsel’s advice marks the second time in recent weeks that a majority of supervisors have given weight to a developer’s attorney over their own, taxpayer-funded lawyer.
Supervisors fielded heavy criticism when they let the private group Protect Our Property Rights write a land-use law and allowed the organization’s attorney to craft changes during a public hearing.
Critics accused them of being too deferential to a developer’s attorney.
In both cases, Lenthall, Achadjian and Ovitt supported the private attorney.

© 2007 San Luis Obispo Tribune and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.sanluisobispo.com

Permalink

Category: County info