Local opposition grows to Dana Reserve housing development in Nipomo 

Drive down Pomeroy Road in Nipomo, and you immediately see the signs.

"Nipomo, say no, before it's too late, to the Dana Reserve housing development," reads a cascade of cardboard speckling front lawns and sidewalks for blocks.

click to enlarge

• Photo By Jayson Mellom
• TALKING IMPACTS Backdropped by the site of the would-be Dana Reserve housing development with 1,289 proposed homes and units, Nipomo residents Alison Martinez (left) and Kelly Kephart explain why they oppose it.

Alison Martinez lives a short distance from Pomeroy. The 23-year resident is leading the community charge against the 1,289-home Dana Reserve, the largest proposed housing project in unincorporated San Luis Obispo County in 25 years.

At the bottom of her driveway, a large folding table holds a binder full of petition signatures, an overhead map of the Dana Reserve project, and an email address residents can contact to get involved or to buy a sign.

So far, Martinez and her allies have collected more than 2,000 signatures in opposition to the project.

"We're not saying don't do the project," Martinez told New Times as she looked out at the 288-acre cattle ranch around the corner from her house that's slated for 10 new neighborhoods. "We know growth is going to happen. We know housing is an issue. But do it responsibly."

Armed with facts, data, and plenty of signs, Martinez stood side by side with fellow resident Kelly Kephart in front of the project site on Sept. 9. Their opposition to Dana Reserve is not about NIMBYism (Not In My Backyard), they said. It's about communitywide impacts—six major ones, according to a draft environmental impact report (EIR), including the removal of nearly 4,000 oak trees.

"It's not just oak trees," explained Kephart, a biologist, mother of two, and 17-year Nipomo resident. "They're removing 97 percent of Burton Mesa chaparral, a sensitive habitat. ... One day, I looked out at all the oak trees there, and I said, I can't just not speak up. Something has to happen. There has to be some kind of pushback."

Martinez and Kephart didn't know each other until they connected on social media over the project. Since then, they've worked together to alert the community and build a movement against it.

The overarching issue, they said, is the size, scope, and scale of the development. While Kephart's initial concern was over biological impacts, Martinez's was traffic. Both said that when the draft EIR came out in June, the additional impacts it cited concerned them and their neighbors.

"I didn't realize that the air quality fugitive emissions are going to be as high as they are on a daily basis [during construction]," Kephart said. "That makes me worried for my kids. I'm right next to it."

Neither resident said they are opposed to any development on the ranch site. But pointing to the draft EIR, they argued that the county never planned for such a surge of housing in Nipomo. They don't think the town's infrastructure is prepared, from its roads, to its schools, to its public safety services.

"We definitely need [more housing], but there has to be some sort of balance," Kephart said. "Is removing 4,000 oaks trees balance? Is developing this at such a rate that the rest of us have these potential safety issues balance?"

Dana Reserve developer Nick Tompkins—a Nipomo resident himself—told New Times that he understands the community's concerns about the project, but believes his development solves more problems than it creates.

A few years ago, while investigating the county's lack of "missing middle" housing, Tompkins said he learned that the Cañada Ranch between Tefft Street and Willow Road was identified by SLO County as the only site in South County available to "move the needle" on housing.

The plans that his team at NKT Commercial drew up attempt to strike a balance to meet a variety of Nipomo's needs, he said. One need is affordable and middle-income housing; another is traffic improvements between Tefft and Willow; and another is water and sewer challenges.

One of Dana Reserve's 10 neighborhoods will be entirely low-income affordable housing, owned and managed by nonprofit People's Self-Help Housing (which Tompkins is on the board of); about a third of the remaining homes will be luxury homes priced at around $1 million; and the final two-thirds of homes will be priced between $500,000 and $700,000, he said.

In general, Tompkins emphasized that he carefully structured the size of the development, the fees he'll pay, and the infrastructure improvements he'll invest in to meet Nipomo's needs. He argued that Nipomo's traffic will improve as a result of his road improvements, with the exception of the Willow Road and Highway 101 interchange area. He said water and sewer rates will drop with the project, thanks to a contractual wrinkle between the Nipomo CSD and city of Santa Maria that gives Nipomo additional water from Santa Maria that it currently doesn't have the customers for.

"The math works for Nipomo ... and these are all things that start to fall apart when you change the project," Tompkins said. "It's trying to thread the needle and come up with something that I recognize is going to be impossible for a lot of people to get comfortable with."

As mitigation for the tree and habitat removals, Tompkins is establishing conservation easements on land a few miles from the project that will permanently protect a forest of oak trees.

"The tree deal to me is something I actually understand," he said. "It's the one thing when we went into this, I'm walking with wife and said, it's the one part I hate. They're beautiful trees. That is why we were glad to be able to permanently protect through conservation easements four to five existing mature trees for every one tree we remove to build homes."

As the Dana Reserve moves forward with the county's entitlement process, Martinez and Kephart said they'll continue to lift up the community's concerns and make their voices heard. Whether their activism will result in changes to the project or not remains to be seen.

"Do I feel like the county wants to listen to us? No. Do I think the county wants to push this through as fast as possible? Yes," Kephart said. "I think we still need to push for public involvement, because this is supposed to be a public process. We've put a lot of effort into education and even if we don't make headway, I'll feel like at least we did something." Δ