Despite planning challenges, traffic concerns, and additional needed regulations, the Arctic Cold Processor and Freezer facility can move forward with its operations after the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors approved project revisions.
“This literally can help bring products of Santa Maria, our berry markets, that can go worldwide because of the nature of this project,” David Swenk, representing the planned Arctic Cold development, told the Board of Supervisors during its Sept. 17 meeting.
The project, which has been in the planning process for nearly two years, entails a 449,248-square-foot building with a freezer and processing facility—the largest such facility in the county—inside that would bring in products from local berry farmers to freeze and process into purees like jams or jellies.
The Arctic Cold facility would be located on Betteravia Road, just a mile east of Santa Maria, outside city limits. It would employ more than 300 people and bring in more than $34 million in volume sales, according to Swenk’s presentation.
“It brings our area farmers access to regional, national, international markets, and they have access to major national clients like Smuckers, Sunkist, Pictsweet, and Titan Foods,” he said.
The project halted after being cleared for construction in 2022 because it needed a general plan amendment to allow for pasteurization in processing.
“Titan Foods, one of the customers, they create purees for jams [or] jellies, like Smuckers, and that requires chemical reactions, heating, pasteurization, which is required by national FDA standards,” Swenk said. “If you’re doing something that’s pasteurizing, it’s considered intensive ag, and you need the general plan amendment placed on it.”
Arctic Freeze temporarily removed processing from its facility in order to allow the freezer portion to move forward, and the company worked with the county to get its overlay.
“We understand there’s a risk, but because of the nature of the time, they have to have this building operating for our farmers. We had to go this route, we had no choice,” he said.
The supervisors ultimately approved the project with added conditions that shift changes would occur outside of peak hours (6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.) after 4th District Supervisor Bob Nelson, whose district encompasses the project, shared concerns about semi-trucks blocking Betteravia’s right of way already being an issue. He said he’s concerned about what the roads will look like once 300 employees are coming in and more semis come through the facility.
“So we’re caught between a rock and a hard spot. We need to move this project forward; it’s really valuable for our community, but at the same time there’s concerns about impacts,” he said. “What still remains is the traffic issue. Talking to the community that I have and looking at this, I think this type of facility is 24-hours as is. The key is to stagger the shift change outside of peak hours.”
Swenk accepted Nelson’s shift-change condition, and county planning staff informed him that the county “overplanned” for parking to give space for truck queuing and mitigate traffic issues.
While the supervisors were able to move this project forward, they agreed that it should have been done as a whole instead of broken into pieces.
Third District Supervisor Joan Hartmann asked if the overlay, which caused the delay, was a good requirement to keep moving forward.
“I am reluctant to opine on that without investigating that further,” County Planning and Development Director Lisa Plowman said, responding to Hartmann’s question. “We are looking at allowing some smaller processing through the ag enterprise program we are bringing to the board, but it’s something we’d have to look into.”
Hartmann said that it’d be interesting to explore since the requirement has “been around a long time.”
“I remember when we had a discussion about how we can encourage more processing in our county. It’s a way we can capture more value,” Hartmann said.
