Arroyo Grande is ready to steer back into process compliance.
On June 27, the City Council unanimously initiated an update to Arroyo Grande’s municipal code that allows emergency shelters to be set up in three zoning districts without requiring discretionary permits. They did so to be consistent with state law—specifically Senate Bill 2 that requires the housing plans for all California cities and counties to identify zones where emergency shelters are allowed without conditional use permits or the like.
However, SB 2 has been in effect since January 2008. Arroyo Grande Community Development Director Brian Pedrotti told New Times that the city’s ordinance should have been amended earlier.
“As the housing crisis got worse and worse, [the need to amend] rose to the top,” he said. “There’s lots of state legislation going on all the time, so it’s up to local governments to keep up with them.”
In 2018, Arroyo Grande acknowledged the devastation caused by the lack of housing options and declared a homeless shelter crisis. The city still doesn’t have emergency shelters, but Pedrotti and other city officials hope that changes to the ordinance will open more sites for future development. Reworking the ordinance also comes at a time when South County-based 5Cities Homeless Coalition expressed interest to set up a development in Arroyo Grande that’s similar to its pallet shelter program in Grover Beach.
“Although our rules allowed for shelters, our ordinance was antiquated,” Pedrotti said.
The existing ordinance grants emergency shelters in the industrial mixed-use and highway mixed-use areas but they require minor use permits. The updated ordinance eliminates that requirement. Further, the city included another area along East Grand Avenue between Brisco Road and Halcyon Road called the Fair Oaks Mixed-Use District to allow for more emergency shelters without discretionary permits.
Pedrotti added that once the ordinance becomes effective, proposed emergency shelters only need to meet objective requirements like maintaining a 300-foot buffer between each other, limiting the number of guests to 34, having a set management plan, and maintaining security detail.
“No hearings will be required,” he said. “It’s like [obtaining] a building permit for a single-family home.”
The City Council will return for the final reading and adoption of the amended ordinance on July 25. It will take effect 30 days from that date on Aug. 25. The ordinance discussion on June 27 drew no public comments from residents, which Councilmember Jim Guthrie remarked as a sign of shifting times.
“The fact that we noticed an entire area [the Fair Oaks Mixed-Use District] and surprisingly don’t have anyone here would tell me that attitudes have changed about this particular issue,” he said at the meeting.
This article appears in Jun 29 – Jul 9, 2023.