Pismo Beach neighbors battle with property owner over plans for ocean-view home

On a warm late July morning in Pismo Beach, a collection of residents of the Longview Avenue neighborhood that sits atop the highest hill in the city gathered in the spacious home of Roger Emmons and Elizabeth Burkhead.

The residents and their lawyer, Babak Naficy, were meeting that morning to share their thoughts about a home planned for a property that was visible from Emmons and Burkhead’s back window, which overlooks the narrow ravine between the Longview Avenue homes and the Pismo Preserve.

Their goal? To stop prospective neighbors Rémi Arnaud and Rita Turkowski from building their home on a unique parcel of land with direct views of the ocean.

“We’re in a Cold War situation,” neighbor Steve Carr said during the meeting. “Back in the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s, what the U.S. did was to put such strategic assets in place that if the other side pulled the trigger, they would have been annihilated. We are in the same situation here. If it goes through, it has to be so financially unrewarding to the owner that he would say, ‘No, this doesn’t make sense.’”

That sentiment was largely shared by the 20 neighbors present, who asked Naficy a range of questions about how to stop the project through a California Environmental Quality Act lawsuit and other means.

Residents were quick to point out what they saw as oversights by the San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission, expressing concerns about the amount of grading required, the length of the driveway and the visual and environmental impacts of the home.

“I simply feel that the canyon deserves to stay in the existing natural state so that it can be enjoyed by everyone, Pismo Preserve hikers, nature lovers, and Pismo Beach residents,” Emmons later wrote in an email to The Tribune. “This development for the sake of one person should not ruin the beauty of the canyon for all the other people who enjoy it.”

Naficy advised the neighbors on steps they could take to kill the project, including writing detailed letters of complaint to the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors, getting the City of Pismo Beach involved and hiring an outside consultant to make an evaluation of aesthetic impact.

“This is the kind of neighborhood that the Board of Supervisors takes more seriously than other neighborhoods,” he said.

The project — featuring one 2,881-square-foot home at the base of a 1,200-foot driveway that will run along the back of the homes on Longview and another house eventually planned to perch atop the mountain ridge offering scenic views of Pismo Preserve — has been in the pipeline for around three years, during which Arnaud and Turkowski have worked with the SLO County Planning Commission and architect Bill Isaman to realize their vision.

Now, as the project heads for an approval hearing in front of the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, Sept. 24, Arnaud and Isaman said the neighbors’ claims are largely unfounded, and have been made to obstruct a legal project.

“We are deeply concerned by the misleading information being spread by this small group of individuals opposing us building on our land,” Arnaud told The Tribune in an email. “The individuals involved, including a former mayor of Pismo Beach, a developer, and a real estate agent, hold significant power and relationships in Pismo. While their true motives remain unclear, it has become apparent to us that there is long-standing tension between the city of Pismo Beach and San Luis Obispo County, and I fear we are caught in the middle of it.”

Project site has long, complex history

The proposed project site fits Arnaud’s description, sitting on the San Luis Obispo County side of the border between Pismo Beach and the county.

The site has existed since March 1, 1999, when it was created by a county mapping procedure, according to an April 11, 2024, County Planning and Building Commission Staff Report prepared by Andres Figueroa.

Arnaud and Turkowski, who have lived in Arroyo Grande for the past decade, bought the 17-acre property as entitled in January 2021 from Michael Laird, an orthopedic surgeon with the Central Coast Orthopedic Medical Group who was in the news recently when he was sued for knowingly inserting the incorrect sized knee replacement into a patient’s leg .

The parcel is connected to Longview Avenue by a dirt driveway that would be extended and paved as part of the buildout, and comes with approved space for two homes and a tested well, Arnaud said.

Isaman said the driveway paving and grading is a result of Cal Fire’s requirements for a maximum grade of 20%, which requires a conditional use permit for construction.

Because it sits on a piece of land with a greater than 30-degree grade, the project will require the construction of a platform called a “hammerhead” that will support the foundation of the home and allow Cal Fire emergency vehicles to fully turn around, Isaman said.

Isaman said the homes near the property that border Pismo Preserve have all are benefited from this type of conditional use permit to obtain a variance to exceed building rules.

“To my knowledge, the homes that are up there on the hill are all built on over 30% (incline),” Isaman said.

Kate Taylor-Keeling, an architect who helped design the property, said neighbors’ assumptions are incomplete because they don’t have the full picture of what the structures will look like.

“I think what’s getting lost by the Save the Canyon group is they’re looking at the ‘hammerhead’ as the final product, whereas part of our job is to integrate these types of required elements within the architecture,” Taylor-Keeling said. “There’s going to be a home that’s actually going to shield this from most views.”

The current project plans , approved by the County Planning and Building Commission, include the 2,881-square-foot home with a covered deck, as well as a detached 522-square-foot garage, at the base of the 1,200-foot driveway leading up to the hammerhead turnaround, as well as an additional 2,400-square-foot workshop, but Isaman and Taylor-Keeling said they are no longer planning to build the workshop.

The additional primary home that will be built on the hammerhead is not included in the current proposed project. Conceptual renderings for that home are underway, Taylor-Keeling said.

So far, Arnaud and Turkowski have spent more than $1.2 million on the project — $1 million for the property and more than $200,000 in site studies, legal assistance and design work, Arnaud said.

What are the appellants’ claims?

Entitled for residential development since 1999, the project site was initially considered exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act — the environmental protection law that is considered for almost all new development — due to a standing mitigated negative declaration of potential environmental impacts, a finding that there is no substantial evidence that a project can result in significant adverse environmental impacts, Isaman said.

But the residents of Longview are not convinced by what they consider an outdated CEQA ruling.

When neighbors first launched their appeal, they cited the fact that the site had not been inspected recently as a potential issue for the project going forward.

“On what would they judge a variance?” Longview homeowner Kathy Lafollete said at the neighbors gathering in July. “I mean, they haven’t been out here. They’re making a judgment without ever having looked at the property.”

In response, SLO County Supervisor Dawn Ortiz-Legg went to see the site from Emmons and Burkhead’s neighboring home on July 30 and returned again on Sept. 17 with Arnaud and Turkowski to visit the site itself, she told The Tribune. Supervisor Bruce Gibson said he also planned to see the site ahead of the board’s appeal decision on Sept. 24.

In the group’s appeal of the project’s minor-use permit and variance, Naficy challenged the project’s categorical exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act, citing the project’s road, hammerhead turnaround space, retaining walls and septic system as potential issues.

“The problem we have is with the variances,” Emmons said on an Aug. 6 episode of Dave Congalton Hometown Radio on KVEC. “The code states no grading over 30% — where they’re actually building this thing it’s 70%, it’s two and a half times more than the allowable grade, which just is insanity, and it’s just more potential for slides, more potential for undermining of existing structures.”

Emmons and other Longview neighbors expressed concern about the number of trucks moving cut dirt out of the project and asphalt in, saying it could cause dust, vibration and traffic hazards in the area.

According to Naficy’s appeal, projects on slopes greater than 10% grade must get a major grading permit and environmental determination under CEQA, which is an assessment of whether a development will cause environmental impacts. In the appeal, he said county staff did not do their own research on the project’s potential aesthetic and drainage impacts and accepted the results of environmental reviews paid for by the applicants.

In the appeal, Naficy said the county failed to recognize the potential drainage impacts of installing the driveway on a steep grade, and said the staff report failed to include analysis of neighborhood impacts from hauling cut dirt out and asphalt in.

Naficy also said two plants native to the property — black-flowered figwort and paniculate tarweed — have California Rare Plant Rank status, which would require mitigation of some kind not included in the project plans.

Last, Naficy’s appeal said the project’s application for a minor use permit contained factual errors, omitting topographic maps that would show how the project would comply with site development standards on erosion control, drainage and landscaping.

“This is the city being held hostage by two people who have bought the property behind us, and we have nothing to do with the procedure except that all of a sudden, these people are going to come in at the at the bottom of the hill on a very narrow road, and they’re going to build an asphalt road,” Sheila Blake said on Congalton. “Oh, joy.”

Are neighbors’ claims honest?

Isaman said because neighbors have been unwilling to come to the table and allow the architects to explain the planned buildout, they’re arguing against the project without fully understanding what they’re fighting.

As a result, he said, neighbors don’t have the complete picture of what the project actually entails. For example, the planned workshop on the property that was of particular concern to neighbors at the July meeting had in fact been eliminated from the project’s plans in April following the project’s Planning Commission hearing.

“I think this is an unfortunate misunderstanding,” Isaman said.

Save the Canyon members claim they have repeatedly requested copies of the grading and building plans so that they could review them before any meeting with the owners and architects, but were denied access. Left with “no choice,” they created their own mock-ups by copying the designs off the SLO County Planning Department computers in person “as best we could,” they wrote in a letter to rally their neighbors.

Taylor-Keeling said the architecture firm met with the group once at a county meeting and shared images of the project, but refused to share copies with the group because Arnaud did not want their designs being taken out of context. Arnaud and Turkowski were not present at the meeting.

To avoid further confusion, Isaman said, he didn’t want to release the complicated architectural mock-ups to the neighbors without explaining what the designs meant.

Instead, he invited them to his firm for an in-person meeting, which they declined.

The Tribune was able to confirm this through the email exchanges between Isaman and Save the Canyon.

“We’re somewhat disappointed that we haven’t been able to have a more clear dialog with the neighbors and that they haven’t wanted to come here and have further discussions with us about the design,” Taylor-Keeling said.

County senior planner Eric Tolle said that since 1997, the site has had an archaeological survey, a botanical survey, water percolation testing, well testing and a survey for surface and sub-surface soil and geotechnical conditions.

Though CEQA determinations on a piece of property are valid no matter the elapsed years, the scope of the grading work triggered the need for entitlement permits — namely a minor use permit and variance for grading — that require a corresponding CEQA analysis, Tolle said.

“The county, as the lead responsible CEQA agency for this project, ultimately chose to conduct a subsequent (mitigated negative declaration) because of new environmental conditions present involving on-site botanicals and to appropriately address the concerns of the appellants using all of these field survey/testing results along with current CEQA environmental evaluation data,” Tolle said in an email to The Tribune.

Arnaud also said he has paid out of pocket for additional independent environmental studies to build trust with neighbors.

Neighbors have also claimed that the city of Pismo Beach was never notified of the project or potential impacts from construction trucks, but Taylor-Keeling said the city has been in the loop since 2022, finding no issue with the project.

What’s next for the Longview Project

Save the Canyon’s appeal will go before the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, and the fate of the project will be determined.

The hearing will reconsider the mitigated negative declaration made on the CEQA review.

If the Planning Commission’s decision is overturned, Arnaud and Turkoswki will lose their minor use permit to disturb over an acre of land and the variance that would allow them to build their driveway and the hammerhead turnaround on slopes with over a 30 percent grade.

Save the Canyon has spent the 30-day open-comment period prior to the meeting writing letters and going on radio talk shows to gather support. As of Sept. 20 — four days before the meeting — Emmons said they had nearly 100 signatures on their appeals petition.

But Arnaud and Turkowski’s team feel confident going into the hearing, too.

“At this moment in time, we feel very supported by the county,” Taylor-Keeling said.

For the Longview neighbors who opposed the project, Burkhead said it boils down what she sees as a sense of entitlement.

“Nobody’s entitled to a variance,” she said at the July gathering of Save the Canyon. “He just increased his property value exponentially by being able to build on a 60- to 70-degree slope two houses … at the expense of other people. To me, that’s entitlement. It doesn’t ring fair to me.”

For Arnaud and Turkowski, they feel they are caught in the midst of a “disinformation campaign” that might just cost them millions of dollars and their dream home.

“We are convinced our future neighbors are great people who want to do the right thing for the community,” Arnaud wrote in a Nextdoor post . “However, we are very concerned you have been misguided by a disingenuous disinformation campaign that seems to be rooted in a County vs. City conflict and a strong case of NIMBY-ism.”

“Signing a petition or sending letters to ask for this project to not be permitted is asking to deny our right to equal opportunity to exercise the freedom to pursue our dream home, for the privilege of a few who already own a house in Pismo Heights,” he wrote.