A city proposal to require certain motels along Avenue of Flags in Buellton to return to short-term rentals has sparked pushback from tenants and property owner Kerry Moriarty, who say the move would eliminate affordable housing.
City Manager Scott Wolfe said the ordinance is part of a long-term effort to revitalize Avenue of Flags and ensure motels are used for their original purpose.
“Our Avenue of Flags is home to a number of motels that have been there for decades, going back to the 50s or 60s in some cases or earlier than that,” Wolfe said. “Over time, some of those motels have converted, in violation of our municipal codes, to long-term rental, essentially becoming apartment buildings instead of motels.”
Wolfe said the city partnered with an affordable housing developer to provide replacement units and offered applications to motel residents before opening them to the public.
“Several of them actually wound up moving in there,” Wolfe said. “But we’ve reached a point now where, now that that first affordable housing project has been developed, we need to start pushing to make sure that we see that redevelopment or the revitalization on the avenue take place.”
He said the proposal includes timelines for relocation.
“The way the council is looking at it right now, we would still take that approach,” Wolfe said. “The difference being instead of it being the end of this calendar year when that six months would start, it would be, I believe they’re looking at April 1st when that time period would start and it would end sometime in October. So it’s still a situation where we’re not looking to throw people out on the street. We want to give people the opportunity to find additional housing.”
Moriarty, who owns the Farmhouse Apartments, said he was blindsided by the plan.
“All of a sudden, I get a call from some of my tenants saying that we’re being kicked out by the city, and I wasn’t quite sure what that was all about,” Moriarty said. “Apparently, there was an article in the Santa Ynez newspaper, stating that the city of Buellton was proposing a new ordinance to revert the old motel use from apartment or residential back to being a motel use.”
However, Wolfe confirmed during a visit to City Hall that the city had informed Moriarty through letters sent to his properties as early as October 2024, and again in February, July, and August of this year.
Still, Moriarty said he did not receive notice of the Planning Commission’s meeting on the issue, and when he saw people knocking on doors at his property, he confronted them.
“One day, I saw 3 or 4 people with little notepads, just knocking on the doors. And so I went over there and I said, you know, this is private property, you know, you shouldn’t be soliciting our tenants,” Moriarty said. “I didn’t know that was coming from the city, because nobody notified me that's what they were going to do.”
He argued the ordinance runs counter to state housing mandates and would place an extreme burden on both his tenants and himself.
“There’s 22 units there, and it’s been operated as an apartment building for the last, probably 30 years,” Moriarty said. “The ordinance states that, within six months, all the tenants would have to vacate, and then I would have to operate the property back as a motel. Thereby, I’d have to kick out or displace 22 apartment users or, you know, families and individuals, which half of them have lived there for over ten years.”
Moriarty said converting the property back into a motel would cost about $1 million and could take years to rebuild a customer base. He has hired an attorney and said legal action may be possible if the ordinance is approved.
Tenants, many of whom have lived at Farmhouse for more than a decade, also voiced concerns.
“Well, you know, being disabled, of course, you know, I’m very worried,” said resident Gui Mailer, who has lived there for 14 years. “I became disabled 15 years ago. I have spinal nerve damage because I broke my back, and I just got my first security disability and this was the only place I could find to move in.”
Mailer said his fixed disability income limits his options if he’s forced to leave.
“It just seems like we got so many homeless and in need of low-cost housing, and you know, they talk about, oh, well, we’ll just relocate you. Well, you know what? If you don’t want to be relocated, this has been apartments for a while now. I hear 30 years. And so it’s like, why now?”
Mailer also questioned why another property was exempt. “You know, the Red Rose Court, which I spent a few nights down there. You know, it’s the same situation. They switched over to apartments. For some reason, they have amnesty or something. I don’t understand what that’s about, but it just seems like just this apartment building.”
Wolfe confirmed that Red Rose Court was purposely exempted and explained that it was made to satisfy state housing requirements, since the historic property was well-kept and had relatively stable tenants.
The ordinance is expected to return for a second reading at the Buellton City Council meeting in September, but a final date has not been confirmed.
