Neighbors of the proposed Costco gas station in western Goleta showed up at City Hall on Monday to protest the wholesaler’s plans to put in a 16-pump fueling station.

Citing traffic, public safety and environmental issues, residents questioned the thoroughness of the project’s draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Report.

“In particular I’m concerned about increased car traffic on bicycles,” said Harry Nelson, who had written a letter during the scoping process to inquire about the increased traffic.
Other neighbors worried about the increased flow of cars to the area to fill up at the station and the estimated two to four tanker trips per day to supply the underground fuel storage tanks.

Yet other neighbors raised the issue of the shopping center’s original obligations to provide mitigations for its construction seven years ago, such as bike storage and alternative transportation. While Wynmark, the developer of Camino Real Marketplace, paid the $5.2 million to the county to provide for those mitigations (the city had not formed yet), those projects have not yet appeared.

The proposed Costco gas station, a 10,800-square-foot project, would be located at the far western end of the shopping center, between Costco and CompUSA. Three 30,000-gallon fuel tanks would be installed underground.

According to the draft SEIR, the loss of 88 parking spaces would constitute a significant and immitigable impact to traffic in the area. The project’s location in the flight path of planes landing and taking off from the Santa Barbara Municipal Airport would be another such impact as it would expose people in the area to an increased risk of harm if there should be an airplane crash in the area.