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Are You In, or Are You Out?
updated: Sep 16, 2012, 8:04 PM

By Edhat Subscriber

... or is it better to be part of an actual city?

Comments in order of when they were received | (reverse order)

COMMENT 320914P	2012-09-16 08:20 PM
Yes ive lived both in the city, and in the unincorporated area. In many ways, more low-key, slower pace in the uninc. area. Close to lots of natural beauty- bike path, goleta beach, More mesa, convenient to either goleta, SB, or freeway.........
COMMENT 320915	2012-09-16 08:20 PM
Location, location, location.
COMMENT 320924P	2012-09-16 08:54 PM
The unincorporated area on the South Coast includes Noleta and Montecito and Summerland, as well as Gaviota; which are you talking about? All are under County jurisdiction and it depends what you are planning to do and whether you are planning to send children to schools, etc. The question is unanswerable: do you want County government or do you want City (Goleta, Santa Barbara, Carpinteria) government?
COMMENT 320931P	2012-09-16 10:17 PM
Cities tend to have more fees and bureaucracy.
COMMENT 320934P	2012-09-16 11:06 PM
931P - Truer words were never spoken. I'd rescind my Goleta cityhood vote if I could. I thought the County was bad...
COMMENT 320937P	2012-09-17 12:02 AM
It has been very sad to watch what has happened to Goleta and the seemingly unfettered development and worship and handouts to developers eg Towbes. So ironic when I think back to what the original goals of the Goleta now group were.
COMMENT 320939P	2012-09-17 02:03 AM
I briefly owned on the westside in SB back in the early 1980's but now own in Noleta but for the life of me I could not tell you what if any the differences are between the two. Sorry.
COMMENT 320946P	2012-09-17 06:10 AM
Rattlesnakes.
COMMENT 320948P	2012-09-17 06:18 AM
The city of Santa Barbara charges a tax on all your "utilities" -- gas, electricity, phone, cable, water, trash ..... From SB's own web site: http://www.santabarbaraca.gov/Business/Business_License/UUT/ "Utility Users Tax (UUT) is a general tax levied on the use of residential and commercial utility services, including water, refuse, electric, and natural gas. The City’s Utility Users Tax rate is 6%....Telecommunications Utility Users Tax (Telecommunications UUT) is a general tax levied on telephone, cellular, VoIP, video, and cable television services. The current rate (is) 5.75%." I don't see a 6% increase in services or amenities provided by the city over the unincorporated area, so that's reason enough for me not to want to live in the city.
PETER	2012-09-17 06:29 AM
If you run a business out of your home, you will require a business permit in the city, but not in the unincorporated areas.
COMMENT 320953	2012-09-17 06:44 AM
Janet Wolfe is the district supervisor. There isn't much government restriction not much help either.
COMMENT 320958	2012-09-17 06:56 AM
You will find the city digging into your wallet and personal business at every turn. Hedges too high? Fined! Want a tool shed? Fee! For my recent small remodel, city fees were a full third of the cost with no value add that I could see.
COMMENT 320959	2012-09-17 06:57 AM
@937 all of the new development since the City of Goleta incorporated was planned and approved long, long ago under the awful SB County regime and was ready to go. The City incorporated in large part to be able to control future development (beyond those projects). I do not know by how much, if at all, the City was able to improve upon or mitigate those new developments and/or curtail future development. Maybe someone else can illuminate that for us here. If I were to buy a home in the uninc area, I'd do extensive homework on the land (brownfields, historic landuse etc.) and what is around that's slated for possible new development and look at traffic.
COMMENT 320968	2012-09-17 07:32 AM
Re: the county areas: The good: You can do as you please on your own property. The bad: Your neighbors will do the same.
COMMENT 320970P	2012-09-17 07:40 AM
959- thats just not true. The county did not decide to give towbes millions for sumida gardens. The county did not approve the mega development planned on hollister across from camino real. The county did not approve hotel after hotel, creating hhundreds of low skill, low paying jobs.
COMMENT 320973	2012-09-17 07:50 AM
Yeah no required garage!! Turn that garage into a family room or one bedroom rental
COMMENT 320977	2012-09-17 07:55 AM
If you live in unincorporated Mission Canyon, you pay the City for your water, and you pay at a higher rate than City residents do. On the otherhand, you don't pay higher city taxes which support streetlights and sidewalks (there are none in Mission Cyn).
COMMENT 320979P	2012-09-17 08:08 AM
973- i swear you must be talking about City of SB. Just about every "garage" on my street houses one or more individuals or families.....not to mention the creative DIY "additions" on the houses.
COMMENT 320989	2012-09-17 08:33 AM
All of those 'garages' are filled with illegal immigrants in the city. My mom lived next door to a group of about 25 in a 2 bedroom home. Men who got drunk on the porch and peed in their own yard and my mom's too! Children running amok with runny noses and illegal food vendors ringing bells and honking horns. Trash too. It's disgusting, but the city will do NOTHING about it.
COMMENT 320995	2012-09-17 08:38 AM
With all the illegal units in the city of SB housing thousands of undocumented low-income residents you can see why Santa Barbara has a false reputation as a wealthy city. Just the opposite.
COMMENT 321014	2012-09-17 09:15 AM
It's cheaper outside the city! www.sbhomesearch.info
COMMENT 321016	2012-09-17 09:23 AM
Well, all those people crammed into illegal units are here to work, right? Part of what keeps us in our wealthy lifestyle, access to people that are willing to dig and clean and build for low wages. You want to clean up the city, stop hiring them! I commute to Ventura and in the go-go days of real estate the number of trucks (plumbers, landscapers, construction) coming to SB from Vta in the morning was amazing. After the downturn the traffic decreased by a lot.
COMMENT 321022	2012-09-17 09:32 AM
It's interesting that people complain about Goleta when there are some people who are considering being annexed into the City because the services are better. If you look at Goleta, the streets are generally well maintained, the neighborhoods are nice, you get more for your money and you can actually talk to your City Council members fairly easily if you have a problem. This week the RVs get pulled off the streets. If I were in your position, I would buy in the City of Goleta (where I live) over anywhere else on the south coast.
COMMENT 321031	2012-09-17 09:46 AM
The "wealthy lifestyle" gets lived in Hope Ranch and Montecito, both of which are in the county of Santa Barbara. Meanwhile the city of Santa Barbara, its housing, public safety, social services and schools are required to subsidize the worker demands of those who serve Hope Ranch and Montecito. Yes, something is wrong with this picture. Particularly when the wealthy rent out their estate's former maids quarters and gardeners cottages at premium yuppie rates. The armies of service workers used to maintain this areas "wealthy" lifestyle need to be tracked for its full fiscal impact on each surrounding community.
COMMENT 321039	2012-09-17 10:16 AM
031 - its called property taxes, and the amount paid by those so-called "wealthy lifestyle" areas trump the pittance paid by the users of most of the money and services rendered... In your haste to try and paint a dichotomy you've failed to understand the basic arithmetic.
COMMENT 321040	2012-09-17 10:19 AM
@970 Yeah, in fact the Sumida Gardens and the Cabrillo Business Park (Hollister & Los Carneros) were specifically projects that spurred the incorporation of Goleta efforts because both of those (plus hotels built and still unbuilt i.e. Page Hotel, Sumida Hotel in Old Town) were ALREADY on the books. All you need to do is look up the Goleta Valley Outlook spiral bound booklet with fold out color maps published by SB County ca. 2004 and you'll find all of those projects there on the maps of each area of Goleta plus scores more. The County produced this planning document and it was just so horrific that citihood finally succeeded. That very few of the projects have actually been built may in fact be due to the Goleta City Council's effort to slow things down until there's consensus over a vision vs. plopping huge developments here and there with no unifying concept (i.e. walkability, community development, etc.). People here have really short memories.
COMMENT 321041	2012-09-17 10:21 AM
I think you still need a permit to convert your garage to living space, even in the county. Right now, I like having a garage, but the extra rental income would be really nice, and maybe required if I lose my job.
RED CREEK	2012-09-17 10:55 AM
Of the issues and comments concerning livability they seem to indicate that the local government agencies are mostly blind to the responsibility of "health and safety"!!! Isn't basic health and safety a primary goal of all government? Based on health and safety issues very hard to chose, but I am happy in Goleta.
COMMENT 321075	2012-09-17 11:51 AM
what is up with all of the questions regarding best neighborhoods, where to buy, where not to buy, Goleta v Santa Barbara, San Roque v Samarkand etc.... It feels like it is DAILY! It's Santa Barbara for crying out loud! OR Goleta! Or even the Valley or Lompoc! Every neighborhood has an upside and downside, but either way it is going to be GREAT. SHEESH!
COMMENT 321088	2012-09-17 12:19 PM
No math failure when residents of the county make decisions to hire armies of service workers who in turn negatively impact the residents of the city. Run the math and get back to me.
COMMENT 321093	2012-09-17 12:28 PM
@970 - oops. The SB County planning and development document I was referring to about Goleta development projects was published around or before 1994 (not 2004!). But my comment about people around here having a short memory stands because no one corrected me. Anyone interested in development might want to look up that document to see what may or may not still be planned for Goleta.
COMMENT 321096	2012-09-17 12:39 PM
075... decaf for you the rest of the day...
COMMENT 321101	2012-09-17 12:55 PM
I don't now, but I have lived in converted, non permitted units and thank god for them. I work f/t, own a business and pay taxes, vote and I am not an illegal, non white (whatever that implies). My landlords were happy to have the income and I was happy to have truly affordable housing in this beautiful place. When I read some of these comments my heart breaks for the casual hate in the tone.

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