The Dana Reserve Project has been in the works for over five years and aims to bring more than 1,300 homes to 288 acres of land west of Highway 101 and south of Willow Road in Nipomo.
The project will allocate more than 100 homes for low and very low-income residents and incorporate down payment assistance programs.
“The goals go well beyond just the affordability of homes in both percentage and numbers, it also impacts how we look at water and sewer systems for the rest of the community,” said Nick Tompkins, Managing Partner for the Dana Reserve.
However, opposition from neighbors has been vocal from the project’s inception, driven by concerns such as increased traffic, air quality and the removal of oak trees.
"A lot of people are like well, you know, you guys are picking trees over the people," said Sandy Christiansen of the Nipomo Action Committee. "No, that’s absolutely not the case. Housing is needed. It's really not a matter of an one or the other situation, but there is a way to have housing and the trees.”
Christiansen, who moved here from Los Angeles seeking a different lifestyle, tells me that this dense development project is not in character with her neighborhood at all.
"We moved away from there, we escaped to paradise, and the project that they’re proposing to put in is not really within the character of Nipomo,” she said.
After dozens of conversations with the Nipomo community, developers have modified the project, pledging to remove 2.1 trees for every house built while conserving 11.8 permanently.
It's a trade-off Tompkins says they had to make to get the affordability into the project.
"I think change is also difficult, and especially a change of the magnitude that we’re talking about,” Tompkins said.
Both supporters and opponents will get a chance to voice their opinions at the San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission meeting on the project next week. The meeting will take place over two days — Monday, Oct. 23 and Tuesday, Oct. 24 — at the Board of Supervisors Chambers in San Luis Obispo.
"Regardless of how we come out on this issue, it's brought people together, and we’ve been heard,” Christiansen said.
For more information on the Dana Reserve Specific Plan, including a link to the Final Environmental Impact Report, click here.
