Housing growth in Los Osos was an item on the agenda at the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, and it all came down to water.
The Local Coastal Program currently caps Los Osos' growth rate at 1%. The Los Osos Basin Management Committee (BMC) is suggesting a 0% increase. The county is suggesting a 0.4% increase for 2026.
“Under the recommended 0.4% growth rate, it’d be 25 permits that could be issued for residential housing,” said Ron Munds, Los Osos Community Services District (CSD) General Manager.
Baback Naficy is a land use and environmental attorney. He explained that the Los Osos BMC was created to manage the area’s groundwater basin and its suggested growth rate is based on the community’s water situation.
“And basically agreed that they needed to set up a committee to monitor groundwater use in Los Osos and to really address this long-term threat to the basin, which is sea water intrusion,” Naficy said.
It's an issue that officials in Los Osos, including water purveyors and the CSD, would like to address before any new developments are approved. That's why they sent a joint letter asking the board not to increase development.
“So the CSD doesn’t take a position on pro-growth or no growth. It really has to be on a resource availability and how do we grow that responsibly,” Munds said.
Cory Hanh, San Luis Obispo County Long-Range Planning Division Manager, explained why they recommended the 0.4%.
"Because the county and the board recently passed some new housing initiatives, we thought it would make a lot of sense, so we can better allow for development," Hanh said.
He added that in the past, they have not exceeded the growth cap.
"The thing is, about the growth cap, we never hit it essentially because a lot of the times it is a certain number and the number of actual requests we get to build doesn't reach that amount," Hanh said.
The SLO County Board of Supervisors decided to approve the amendments to the growth management ordinance, moving forward on expansion for Los Osos in 2026.
