The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors recently approved a new study looking into improvements at the Oak Shores and Santa Margarita Ranch fire stations.
But they’re also looking into building a brand new fire station on a piece of land east of Arroyo Grande that is being donated by the Talley family.
“This is an area that, in my opinion, is underserved given the amount of development that has occurred here over the last few years,” said Bryan Talley, Talley Farms & Vineyards President/CEO.
The Talley family owns the piece of land adjacent to Biddle Regional Park and donated it to the county.
Talley hopes adding a fire station in the area would help reduce response times.
“It was actually recommended in the strategic plan that given the level of development that we have here, we should have response times of less than 8 minutes,” Talley said. “One of the benefits of establishing a new fire station immediately adjacent to Biddle Park is that we would be able to achieve that standard for many of the folks that live in this area.”
Josh Taylor, Deputy Chief of Operations for CAL FIRE’s San Luis Obispo unit, says the donated land needs to be studied to ensure that it is suitable to build on.
“Before they accept property donated or paid for, that it will meet the needs of the fire department and the county, meaning, it is suitable for us to build the fire station on,” Taylor said. “There may be something under the ground that we have no idea that's there, some sort of contamination or anything and we want to make sure we get that out before we go and accept that property.”
Talley says he and other community members were previously canceled by their fire insurance.
“A lot of people have had their insurance canceled and one of the primary reasons for that is the very delayed response time,” Talley said. “So we're hoping that, again, getting a new fire station will really address that issue and help folks get their insurance back.”
District 4 Supervisor Jimmy Paulding says the new fire station is in the very early planning stages and the feasibility studies must be done first.
“Our board directed staff to work toward that goal with a not-to-exceed budget of $750,000 and hopefully we'll make a determination then as to whether this site is suitable for a future fire station,” Paulding said.
