Low-income housing development at former Santa Maria drive-in property moves closer to construction

SANTA MARIA, Calif. - The long-planned low-income housing development to be built on the property of the closed Hi-Way Drive-In in Santa Maria has moved one step closer to construction.

On Tuesday night, Santa Maria City Council unanimously approved the Final Map and Subdivision Improvement Agreement for Skylight Homes.

"Tonight's agenda item is the Final Map and the Development Agreement, to guarantee that the subdivider year completes all the subdivision improvements that were required of the project," said Frank Albro, Santa Maria Principal Planner said earlier in the day. "The project was approved with a General Plan Amendment three years ago. Two years ago, they received their approval for their Tentative Subdivision Map and their Plan Development Permit and tonight is just the continuation of that process where the Final Map goes before Council before it gets recorded and the developer agrees to certain bond costs and bond amounts to guarantee the public improvements are completed."

Albro further explained what specific public improvements are needed to be made by the developer of the project, nonprofit housing organization People's Self-Help Housing.

"There are some storm drainage improvements," said Albro. "The public street and curbs and sidewalks. The water infrastructure, the sewer infrastructure and those sorts of things that come along with the development of the subdivision site are the types of improvements they bond for. Another good example is the landscaping in the public right of way."

People's Self-Help Housing has been planning Starlight Homes for several years at the nearly nine acre site that once was home to the popular drive-in theater.

"Skylight Homes is a 49 single-family home project that's going to be comprised of almost all low-income households," said Jimmy Summer, People's Self Help Housing Director of Home Ownership. "These families will be doing what we like to call our light sweat equity program. They won't be doing the majority of the construction, but they're still be doing a portion of that. A lot of the finished work and storing and selling the flooring, doing the painting, yard like landscaping, things like that, in exchange for sweat equity credit, which goes towards their down payment."

The project will feature single-story, energy efficient homes and will vary in size from 1,100 to 1,500 square feet and include three and four bedrooms, two bathrooms and an attached two-car garage.   

Starlight Homes is also slated to have at least half of the homes set aside for households that work in the agriculture industry.

"It's no secret that the Central Coast is an extremely desirable but also very expensive place to live," said Summer. "It's next to impossible for hardworking, low-income families to be able to achieve the dream of homeownership, so our program is one of the opportunities that they have to be able to afford a house that they help contribute towards by putting in their sweat equity. Half of these homes will also be set aside specifically for farmworker households because we received grants from the state from the Joe Serna Farmworker Housing Funding program, so that's really exciting that half of these households get to go towards agricultural households, which we know is a big population in Santa Maria. The other households will just be low-income and they'll receive other forms of down payment assistance as well to help keep their mortgages affordable."

Once the project gets going, construction is scheduled to take place in four separate phases with each one lasting between nine to 12 months.

The first phase expected to begin in January 2026.

“The first two phases should hopefully be done by early 2027, which sounds like a long time, but that's how long it takes to get these projects built out," said Summer. "We are really excited to be able to break ground on this soon and get these low-income households in housing.” 

Applications for the first phase will open in late fall of 2025.

Hi-Way Drive-In was open at the site along Santa Maria Way was a longtime popular area attraction for more than four decades, especially for families, who frequented the outdoor theater.

At the time of its closing in January 2022, the drive in owners indicated the economic climate at the time and ever-changing film industry caused the closure.

According to DriveInMovie.com, there are only about 330 drive-in theaters remaining in the United States as of July 2024, including 15 in California.

Sunset Drive-In located in San Luis Obispo is the lone remaining drive in theatre on the Central Coast.

For more information about People's Self-Help Housing, click here to visit for the official website.