The last piece of the Westar Hollister Village complex came close to dropping into place at Goleta's Planning Commission last week. The massive 266-unit development across the street from Costco has 1.84 acres left to develop in a triangular lot, originally envisioned as commercial spaces and a handful of live-work units. The triangle lot's configuration now is a single two-story structure with 27 apartments, five of which Westar will rent as affordables to low-income tenants as part of a settlement agreement reached with the city in October.
The questions at the Planning Commission provided a roadmap to the aftershocks the Westar project has produced in the community. Would the new 28-foot-tall structure block mountain views? Did the already built complex have parking problems? Did the tenants commute within the area? Connor Best, a second-generation partner at Westar, which is based in Costa Mesa, answered that Hollister Village had a one percent vacancy rate, parking varied from day-to-day but appeared to be without issues, 70 percent of its residents worked on the South Coast — 40 percent of them in Goleta itself — and, no, the original three-story structure had created no view impacts in the original environmental report.
Best orated that the five affordable studios were being provided for 30 years with no density bonus and no redevelopment-dollar benefit to his company. The project as a whole, which adds 14 studios and 13 one-bedrooms to Goleta's housing stock, would help satisfy state quotas and improve the city's jobs-housing imbalance, he said. In return, however, should the city reject the new plan, the staff report stated, Westar could be entitled to construct the 12,687 square feet of commercial space and five live-work units already approved in 2012.