A delayed Cayucos motel received the green light from the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors, but residents who appealed the project claim they never supported its revised design.
“We’ve encountered one obstacle [after] another throughout this process,” Cayucos resident Vicki Tamoush told supervisors at the July 8 meeting. “The most recent example of which is the staff report [county planner Andy] Knighton submitted that leads the reader to believe that we appellants and Mr. Donaldson came to an agreement.”
Tamoush along with 22 other residents appealed the proposed motel, nicknamed Nene’s Place, in April. They worried that the 4,900-square-foot project was too big for the seven parking spaces included in the plan and would consequently overflow into parking spots in neighboring areas of the coastal town.
In April, the board agreed to postpone the appeal to July 8 and asked the applicant to return with a plan for more parking spaces. By then, the project proposal changed and now includes seven standard parking spaces instead of parking split between motel and residential uses. It also restructured a proposed caretaker’s residence and three motel units into a common room, a residential unit, and two motel units. Overall, the entire project’s floor plan was reduced to 4,210 square-feet.
“The revised project design was provided to the appellants and their representative, Mr. [Dan] Borradori,” the staff report said. “The appellants and Mr. Borradori were supportive of the revised design.”
Tamoush and fellow Cayucos resident John Carsel alerted supervisors of the disagreement via letters before the board meeting.
“I have spoken directly with the appellants and Mr. Borradori and been told that their discussions did NOT result in an agreement,” Carsel wrote. “Granted, the phrase ‘are supportive’ does not necessarily mean ‘agree,’ but the context clearly implies ‘agreement’ and the lack of other comments from the appellants in the staff report strengthens this conclusion.”
Carsel pointed out that the staff report doesn’t mention that the common room would come with a golf simulator room and a bathroom. He alleged that there are rumors the common area will have a game room holding vending machines with food and drinks.
Thom Jess of Arris Studio Architects, who’s working with motel developer Uriah Donaldson, told supervisors that the game room wouldn’t be open to the public and is reserved for residents and guests only.
“It’s not going to increase the number of parking spaces required,” Jess said. “Uriah is a big golfer, and he thought other people would like golfing, so he wanted to put in a golf simulator and a pool table.”
The supervisors unanimously approved the project permit after 2nd District Supervisor Bruce Gibson and 5th District Supervisor Heather Moreno directed staff to edit the resolution to specify that the common area can only be used by motel guests, people living in the residential unit, and their visitors. The common area also cannot be used for sleeping or be rented separately for public access.
“If you look at the parking in the revised project, it’s good,” Gibson said. “That is two for each of the motel units, two for the residence as it should be, plus one. One of the seven is an ADA-accessible space and one of them will have an electric charger.”
—Bulbul Rajagopal
This article appears in Jul 10-20, 2025.
What the anti-growth appellants fail to mention is that their appeal fees were waived and covered by the County due to their abuse of absurd Coastal Commission rules. For the total sum of $0, the appellants have been able to keep this project from being approved for two years since it was submitted to the County. In that time, this project could have been constructed, operational, and providing TOT and property tax. Now the project is delayed, is less valuable (with regards to property tax calculation), and will provide less TOT. It is no wonder that jurisdictions across the state are seeing revenues fall in relation to expenses when this has become the standard process for projects in California.