How SB's Latest Rental Development Scheme Could Remake Downtown into a Canyon of Tall Buildings

"Santa Barbara's high construction costs -- three times the statewide per square foot average" this is why we will not be able to provide any significant increase in affordable housing in Santa Barbara. If a developer can't pencil out a reasonable profit in exchange for risking considerable capital and lots of effort, then nothing will get built. The abnormally high cost to build here, combined with ever increasing affordability requirements and rent caps, only further discourages new projects from being built. In every debate on this issue in city council they need to ask themselves; "will this encourage or discourage developers from building new housing units"? If we want more affordable units we need to really incentivize developers to do so or simply have the city do it themselves. The biggest problem is people want to limit development, limit building heights, and keep our town "small" while also wanting affordable housing for the working class all the while people keep making more and more people. You simply can't have both.

The risk of listening to people like Sheila Lodge is little housing will get built and the city will fall well short of the state mandated housing production targets. Will the state enforce the new goals? Nobody knows but if they do, we’ll lose all control over local zoning and end up with LA and Orange County quality development. Seems pretty risky to me.

Maybe most of our problems are caused by too much population growth. Why treat the root cause when there is so much money to be made treating the symptoms?

You guys are not watching the state legislation coming down the pipeline. They intend to supersede all local controls to spur building of housing supply in single-family neighborhoods. There's a real estate boom here, and a lot of the buyers are real estate investment trusts. They're not going to be your neighbors or community members. They're going to buy a house, jam 8 units on it, and flip it for multiple times what they paid for it.

Sheila is right. Santa Barbara is unique and needs to protect it's old town. Find another part of town to jam a megalopolis of high priced apartments into.

In a nut-shell, the State of California, in all their present wisdom says, "You can build an Accessory Unit Dwelling (a granny or rental unit) up to 1200 sq ft. anywhere on your property without local ordinances limiting any factors.

Sheila Lodge has donned the mantle of the establishment Lodge's of Boston fame. Adopting a better than thou air and style. She offers a Disneyland Santa Barbara that will please her well situated friends and acquaintances. This makes me uncomfortable. But the truth is more dire than her aesthetic pretense. We have too many people. Population limits are all that will protect our earth from ravage. I am always pleased to see reports of the alleged CA exodus (welcome to Texas folks). But the problem is more basic. Corporations want more customers and more labor at less cost. We need to honor labor, give people space to breathe and save our world. Whether CA can do this alone is doubtful (although Europe was moderately successful before the emigration crisis). So what to do" 1. Stop giving benefits for child birth. 2. Establish a guaranteed minimum income for all legal US residents. 3. Fund real reform in the Central American states which means no more US money to support military governments for a start. 4. Make businesses pay a fair wage and comply with environmental rules no matter where they do business. This is for a start. It is not that hard to figure out what to do but almost impossible to do it in the face of huge money opposition. Still I hope.

Its called pay to play.

We don't have a housing crisis--we have a "too many people" crisis. We also have a pandemic crisis. So this is definitely the time to make "tiny homes" and "little boxes" housing. Yep, crunch all those people together in high rises and watch the virus spread.

https://www.edhat.com/news/major-milestone-achieved-in-the-multi-year-regional-housing-needs-allocation-process

The State mandate is BS. All they want is new housing to get more property tax. Our streets are already packed with cars and near gridlock and these morons want to add more to our population? What made Santa Barbara beautiful and attractive was the open views to the mountains and ocean and set backs (once upon a time) of buildings to avoid the "canyon" feeling. What happened to the great ideal of "living within our resources"?

Local control WILL be taken away if CA SB 9 passes!!

RHNA #s haven't created affordable housing so Scott Weiner & Crew in Sacramento have a new option. Time to wake up and read up on SB 9.

Go to Unitedneighbors.net (or Unitedneighbors.org. ??) for complete explanation of Atkins/Weiner bill & how it will impact neighborhoods. A giveaway/ benefit for investors/developers. Sign up to be informed on action needed to stop this.

Economies of scale can be achieved in SB with lot splits and more units on each lot. All for cause of "affordable housing", yet it will never be affordable in SB just add traffic, out of area students, etc.

Correct website address:
Unitedneighbors.net

The challenge of integrating more housing into the downtown core without destroying the historic ambiance (which Ms. Lodge and others want) could be solved by adopting Form-Based zoning codes like Ventura did more than a decade ago. Such codes specify the streetscape desired (height, massing, setbacks, etc) and the owner decides what to put inside the building envelope. Such codes have been very successfully used in many areas, like Ventura, to preserve the city ambiance while allowing the effective use of the properties. But for some reason, the City staff has been, and remains, unwilling to even evaluate such coding and has instead taken up FAR in an attempt to deal with the challenge. While the use of FARs can solve some issues, it can cause unintended consequences as Ms. Lodge points out.

Need more affordable housing? Scrap the subsidized housing inventory and put it back out there at market rate. Make housing subsidies only available for the elderly and disabled.

“A canyon of tall buildings?” Oh Lord. Please go away Sheila. We need residential development in the downtown core to bring people, who will live and spend money and hopefully someday maybe , just maybe, outnumber the vagrant population downtown.

Why is it a “right” to live in the City of SB or even the county?
If you choose to move here but can’t afford it, why did you move here?
And this is a coastal issue all over the country, expensive housing that is.
Plenty of land in Bakersfield and Fresno and many other inland areas.
Those areas have jobs, housing, supermarkets, malls, etc...
so why are we trying to make SB a clown car?
And today our infrastructure might be able to handle the current demand, but what is being done to increase those if we are to add thousands of additional housing?

And why is it that if you can’t afford new construction the govt says don’t worry we’ll force the developer to take a pay cut. Why not let free market prevail. Those that can afford the new construction will leave their old housing opening it up to those that can afford “not new”.

It’s like giving a 16yr a new Mercedes. They have t earned it snd can’t afford it. But the govt says everyone should have a Mercedes!

What a joke!