The Anastasi Development Company’s Estero Point Subdivision map proposed 98 lots on a nearly 20-acre vacant parcel on Pecho Valley Road in Los Osos. A recent appeals court ruling upheld a lower court ruling and has thrown out the map.
An appeal of a court ruling that overturned the recordation of a final subdivision map in Los Osos has been denied, possibly sending the property owners back to the drawing board, after they waited more than 30 years for action on the proposal.
Called the Estero Point Project (Tract 1646), Anastasi Development Company of Redondo Beach, Calif., is the owner of the property on Pecho Valley Road. The property is nearly 20 acres of vacant land that sits across the street from the Sea Pines Golf Resort and adjacent to the Sunset Terrace Neighborhood.
Anastasi Development proposed a 98-lot subdivision — with 97 single family lots and one lot for a drainage basin — and won tentative map approval back in 1990.
But the approval had two requirements that had to be met before a final tract map could be recorded. They were that it be able to hook up to a community sewer and demonstrate there was water service available. Only then could the project take the next step and record a final map.
Once a final map is recorded, the normal procedure is for the developer to then file plans and seek permits for the preliminary work — grading, drainage and then installation of streets, sidewalks, storm drains, and underground utilities like water and sewer pipes, and most likely electrical service too.
This is also when individual lots would likely be sold, unless Anastasi plans to build the homes as well. With lot sales, the individual property owners would then propose their own home projects processed through the County.
But back in 1990 the town was embroiled in controversy over the community sewer project that wouldn’t be resolved until 2016, when the County’s treatment plant and collection system became operational.
But while the sewer was online and fully operational, another snag arose as a condition in the original Coastal Development Permit issued by the Coastal Commission required the County to first amend the Estero Area Plan, the General Plan for Los Osos (also the Local Coastal Program a Coastal Act requirement), before any additional hookups to the sewer could be approved.
It wasn’t officially amended until 2024, which essentially extended the sewer moratorium another 8 years.
Tentative maps have time limits, but a governing body like the Board of Supervisors has the discretion to extend them, which they did repeatedly for over 33 years.
But in 2023 the old map was quickly approaching a hard deadline and the County sought to move fast to keep the subdivision map alive.
So in October 2023, Supervisors approved a final tract map for Estero Point Project on a 3-2 vote, just weeks before the deadline would have killed it.
A citizen’s group, The Sustainability Group, which has been watchdogging the County and had opposed the Coastal Commission’s 2024 approval of the Estero Area Plan update, filed suit in SLO Superior Court. That update included findings that cleared up the issues surrounding the town’s water supply and whether it was adequate for the existing residents, let alone future development.
The argument against Estero Point centered on timing, as the plaintiffs argued the Supervisor’s approval came 8 months before the Coastal Commission’s approval of the plan update and therefore didn’t meet the requirements the Commission had laid down. They claimed it was a violation of the 1984 Subdivision Map Act.
Judge Craig Van Rooyen agreed and threw out the Supervisor’s 2023 vote on the final tract map.
Anastasi Development appealed and a three-member panel of the State Second District Appellate Court on Aug. 18 upheld Van Rooyen’s original ruling.
Unless Anastasi Development decides to further appeal to the State Supreme Court, the tentative subdivision map from 1990 would apparently be lapsed and if the company still wants to pursue a project, it will have to start over and file for a new subdivision map using current rules and regulations, instead of what they were in 1990.
The Coastal Commission’s restrictions under the CDP for the County’s sewer project would no longer apply and the water availability situation, which is another issue the Sustainability Group has been arguing over, would also appear resolved.
County Supervisors and the Coastal Commission have both approved the Estero Plan Update that called the water supply situation handled.
And Supervisors also approved a 0.4% annual growth rate, which means it could allow a handful of new homes a year to be built in town, the first time that’s been possible since 1988 when the sewer moratorium was handed down by the Regional Water Quality Control Board.
However, that growth figure too has come under fire due to disagreement over the study that was used to arrive at the growth rate.
(Estero Bay News sought to contact Scott Anastasi via email but he didn’t respond before deadline. If we hear form him, we’ll follow up this story.)
