Coastal Commission delays decision on replacing SLO County restaurant, gift shop with motel

A ramshackle former restaurant on Burton Drive in downtown Cambria likely won’t be turning into a 26-unit motel complex anytime soon — at least not under the current plans of the owners, noted hotelier Dirk Winter and his son Bram Winter.

California Coastal Commissioners quickly followed staff’s recommendations and found “substantial issue” with the appeal filed by commissioners Justin Cummings and Ann Notthoff during a meeting Thursday.

If issues had not been found in the appeal, a full hearing on the project’s permit application — which was approved by the San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission on June 7 — would have been held. The “substantial issue” decision challenges the appeal, but staff has delayed a full hearing until sometime in the future.

The decision wasn’t a surprise.

Dirk Winter on Wednesday night told The Tribune he expected his plans for the former Brambles Dinner House and Cambria Nursery Downtown buildings to go on hold Thursday.

Staff did make a few late changes and clarifications to their report — like correcting a numerical typo in the report and inserting a section inadvertently left off — based on a 124-page letter the Commission received Wednesday from Winter’s attorney in Los Angeles.

A 3,720-word addendum to the staff report said other comments in the attorney’s long letter essentially emphasized the same arguments the applicants and their representatives had asserted before.

After the decision, Winter told The Tribune his plan “is always to make good decisions based on all the information we have.”

“We think our present Brambles plan is good for our town, our employees and family,” he said.

He didn’t, however, indicate what future plans might be for the property.

Winter suggested that there might not even be a future hearing about the project, saying he and Commission staff might yet find common ground that would prompt the removal of the commissioner-launched appeal.

Existing buildings have long history in Cambria

The Winters’ plan called for converting the unused former commercial space and the adjacent Cambria Nursery Downtown gift shop and café into the 26-unit motel at 4005 and 4039 Burton Drive.

The site’s low-lying location is adjacent to Santa Rosa Creek and the Burton Drive Bridge across it.

The well-known Brambles Dinner House restaurant operation, which closed in 2011, was housed in an 1870s home, the parlor of which became the Brambles by the Bridge tea room in the 1950s and was the Brambles Dinner House by 1962.

The aging structure has lain empty since the Winters bought the already run-down, shuttered restaurant and 1.6-acre property in 2011.

Meanwhile, the Cambria Nursery Downtown space has been a retail shop for nearly three decades, mostly operating as Oliver’s Twist . For many decades before that, it was the site of Cambria Fire Department.

The Winters bought the property in 2022.

Where was proposed motel for downtown Cambria?

The proposed replacement of a vacant restaurant, cafe and gift shop with a 26-room motel was delayed by the California Coastal Commission off Burton Drive.

Map created with the assistance of ChatGPT.

Commissioners quickly followed staff’s recommendations and rationales

Primary issues mentioned in the staff’s report were the impact the large complex would have on the town’s lack of water , its proximity to Santa Rosa Creek and concerns about compliance with the state’s requirements in the Coastal Act and Local Coastal Plan (LCP) for providing lower-cost accommodations in any new lodging projects.

Notably, the Cambria Community Services District and county planners initially said the previous businesses at the spot used more water than a new motel would, making it consistent with the Local Coastal Plan.

“These conclusions are simply not supported by the facts,” the staff report said.

In the Coastal Commission staff’s own analysis, the project “would use over 400,000 gallons per year more than the site’s current water use.”

“Again, this community does not have this amount of water to spare, and thus clearly runs afoul of LCP water supply and habitat protection provisions,” the report read.

Additionally, the Commission questioned how the project would make 25% of its rooms available at a lower cost as required by the Coastal Act and LCP, saying it “did not provide any detail as to how it would be effectively carried out, including any specificity or parameters regarding implementation.”