By Anabella Lehne
Santa Barbara already has statewide rent caps under California law. So why are we about to spend another $2 million every year creating more bureaucracy instead of more housing?
This proposal means more government tracking, fees, hearings, petitions, and more enforcement.
But no more of what we actually need: housing.
At a time when people are increasingly concerned about digital privacy and protecting vulnerable communities, Santa Barbara should be very careful about expanding government data collection tied to where people live.
This proposal creates a large rental registry system collecting detailed housing and tenancy information across the city. Even if some information is considered confidential, many residents are reasonably asking: Who will have access to this information? How will it actually be protected? And what happens if that data is leaked, hacked, or misused?
Even the City’s own report acknowledges that rental registries require balancing enforcement with privacy concerns.
Santa Barbara has spent nearly a decade of debating rent control, holding hearings, hiring consultants, and expanding regulations. Yet the core problem remains unchanged: we still do not have enough housing.
This is fundamentally a supply issue, and the City keeps attacking the symptom instead of the cause.
None of this lowers construction costs, insurance, utility bills, permit delays, labor shortages, or the endless barriers that make housing so expensive to build and maintain in Santa Barbara.
And here’s what worries me most: Santa Barbara is being told by an outside consulting firm, not people who actually live with the realities of this city every day, that more regulation will solve the housing crisis.
It won’t.
You cannot regulate your way out of a housing shortage.
If Santa Barbara keeps making housing harder and more expensive to operate, fewer people will invest in maintaining housing, fewer people will build housing, and the next generation will continue getting pushed out.
Young families leave. Workers leave. Local businesses struggle to hire. And the people who grew up here increasingly wonder if there is still a future for them in the city they call home.
More paperwork is not more housing.
More regulation is not more affordability.
Santa Barbara is becoming a city the next generation can no longer afford to live in.
Op-Ed’s are written by community members, not representatives of edhat. The views and opinions expressed in Op-Ed articles are those of the author’s.
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Why isn’t Santa Barbara County considering a tax for all homes and apartments that are sitting empty? It’s fine if billionaires want their 4th and 5th homes here but if it isn’t their primary residence, pay a tax.
Tax fraud is already illegal. The IRS already has tools to enforce tax law. A citywide rental registry mainly creates another layer of local bureaucracy and data collection. That still does not solve the underlying housing shortage.
What does tax fraud have to do with this discussion?
What’s needed is a new tax on vacant and/or itinerant housing, and vacant business real estate, too.
Yes! And to do this, there needs to be data collected. Reducing idle housing and vacation rentals will help, faster than new construction.
I understand the desire to reduce illegal short-term rentals or vacant units, but that is also part of my concern. This proposal is being presented as rent stabilization, yet the justification keeps expanding into broader data collection and enforcement goals that already involve existing agencies and processes.
If the City wants to directly target illegal vacation rentals, it should do so narrowly and transparently. Instead, this proposal creates a much broader registry and bureaucracy affecting large numbers of tenants and housing providers.
And under current discussions, some of these costs could potentially be passed on to tenants themselves. So our low-income renters could end up helping pay for an expensive new bureaucracy that still does not directly create housing or increase long-term supply. That is exactly why I believe any enforcement efforts should be much narrower and more targeted.
Vacation rentals and vacant homes are part of the conversation, but they are not the main reason Santa Barbara is unaffordable. A housing shortage caused by decades of underbuilding is. More data collection and bureaucracy alone will not solve that.
The main reason that housing in Santa Barbara is expensive is that this is paradise. There is also a relatively restricted area of suitable land, plus a limited water supply.
No amount of build, build, build will do anything other than destroy the place. Build smarter, not harder.
I actually agree with much of this. Santa Barbara’s geography and desirability absolutely affect housing costs, which is why I am not advocating for reckless overdevelopment or ‘build everywhere’ policies.
My point is that we should focus on smarter housing solutions already available to us: adaptive reuse, processing delayed projects, conversion of underutilized spaces, and streamlining reasonable housing applications already stuck in process. We can protect Santa Barbara’s character while still acknowledging the reality that our city is growing.
Why not do all of it? Penalize illegal short-term rentals, issue a pied-à-terre tax like New York City for luxury homes sitting vacant, and streamline the building process that fits within our city/county regulations so builder remedies can’t develop 10 story apartment structures.
support streamlining housing approvals. That actually addresses supply. My concern is that Santa Barbara keeps expanding bureaucracy faster than it expands housing.
Exactly, “all of the above”. It’s a complex problem and has no single remedy. Obviously more building needs to happen but that is super expensive and slow enough to never get ahead of demand. Short term rentals have been “wild west” for too long and we’ve all suffered for it. It’s an easy fix and an instant boost of supply.
I understand the desire to enforce illegal short-term rentals. My concern is that people are overlooking the risks that come with creating a large housing registry containing detailed tenant and occupancy information.
Santa Barbara talks constantly about protecting vulnerable communities and privacy rights, yet this proposal expands government collection of housing data tied to where people live and who occupies properties. Even if some information is considered confidential, databases can still be leaked, hacked, mishandled, or improperly accessed.
That is not a small issue in today’s world.
If the City wants to target illegal vacation rentals, it should do so directly and narrowly. But creating a broad registry affecting large numbers of tenants and property owners is a much bigger step with long-term consequences that deserve serious public discussion.
Isn’t that going to be part of the discussion at the next meeting? None of this is finalized yet, it’s still in the works. The effort is to support affordable housing for locals, that’s not a bad thing.
I understand it is still being discussed and not finalized yet. That is exactly why people should be talking about it now, before decisions are locked in. Many residents did not even know a large rental registry and new housing bureaucracy were being considered until recently.
I also agree that supporting affordable housing for locals is important. The question is whether this particular proposal will actually stabilize housing or simply add more costs, administration, and data collection without increasing supply.
Even under the current discussions, some of the registry costs could potentially be passed on to tenants. The consultants also could not clearly estimate startup costs during the recent meeting, while Mayor Randy Rowse pointed out that similar programs in cities like Santa Monica now cost millions annually to operate.
My concern is that Santa Barbara keeps expanding bureaucracy while many actual housing projects remain delayed or stuck in process. We should absolutely have a public discussion about whether this approach truly helps affordability and housing availability in the long run.
My first question after reading Ms. Lehne’s article was “what proposal is she talking about?”, so I searched a bit and determined she’s talking about the SB Rent Stabilization Proposal.
Here’s a link to the City’s portal: https://santabarbaraca.gov/services/housing-human-services/affordable-housing/rent-stabilization
You can find other recent articles available in various local media.
Ms Lehne objects to the creation of a rental registry and asks questions about the kinds of information it will contain. I’d offer here that those are good questions but that it appears that they have actual answers if one wants to pursue them. No need to throw up one’s hands and shout to the sky like Chicken Little about it. The details of the proposed registry are still being hammered out, along with many other aspects of the proposal, and will be finalized for consideration late July. So far there appear to be about 13K-15K units that might be included in the registry and that rental owners would pay about $154 per unit per year. The city is looking at Alameda and other CA cities that may have analogous situations to us trying to learn from their mistakes so we might make fewer of our own. That seems cautious and wise to me.
Overall she objects to bureaucracy and regulation, and wonders where is the actual housing, which isn’t entirely unreasonable. But why do I get that sense that she really just wants builders to build like there’s no tomorrow? She says we can’t regulate our way out of a housing crisis and bemoans the high cost of construction, which no amount of bemoaning or boilerplate platitudes will affect in the slightest. But she seems to skip right over this obvious fact of our city: we already have tons of housing available that we don’t have to build, but right now a giant chunk of those units are short-term rentals, and that makes our housing problems worse. If there is something the city can do administratively to immediately make hundreds of units available for long term housing , by regulating the STR market without hurting owners then they should absolutely do it. Instant supply boost. This will make it possible for builders to build like there *actually is* a tomorrow, ie, sensibly and sustainably, and in keeping with SB’s character.
I appreciate the thoughtful response, and I agree that illegal short-term rentals should absolutely be addressed directly. My concern is that this proposal goes far beyond targeted STR enforcement and creates an entirely new permanent housing bureaucracy with costs that ultimately affect both housing providers and tenants.
Even City Council discussions acknowledged that registry costs could potentially be split with tenants by as much as 50%. That means struggling renters could literally receive another housing-related bill tied to a program that does not directly create housing or expand supply.
What also concerns me is that even the consultants could not clearly estimate startup costs during the recent council discussion, while Mayor Randy Rowse pointed out that Santa Monica now spends roughly $6 million annually operating a similar system. Once bureaucracies expand, costs rarely stay where they begin.
And beyond cost, there is still the privacy issue. This registry would collect detailed housing and occupancy information tied to where people live. That deserves serious scrutiny in a city that frequently speaks about protecting vulnerable communities and personal privacy.
I also want to clarify something important: I am not advocating for reckless overdevelopment or “building everywhere.” As a local, I care deeply about preserving the character and charm of Santa Barbara. But we also have to acknowledge reality. Our city is growing, and pretending growth can simply be stopped has contributed to the housing pressures we are now facing.
There are already opportunities to create housing through adaptive reuse, conversion of underutilized spaces, and projects that are currently stuck for years in permitting and review processes. We should focus on streamlining and processing those applications more efficiently before expanding expensive new bureaucracies.
My concern is whether this proposal will actually help housing availability and affordability without creating new costs, bureaucracy, and privacy risks along the way.
Thank you for the response, and I’m glad that you are continuing to clarify your position. I’m still a little fuzzy about privacy concerns. I’m not exactly sure what the risk is, but of course it depends on what kinds of details are included in a registry, but I agree it is a serious step. I withdraw my “build like there’s no tomorrow” comment, I think it was misplaced. Now it seems like you do support an “all of the above” approach.
You’re right about decades of underbuilding. Slow growth has been an important characteristic of SB’s approach to all building, including housing, and it can’t be undone with a quick rush of opportunistic, “builder’s remedy” contracts. So if your goal was just to bring awareness to the process, I appreciate that very much.
I would expect landlords to pass on all kinds of costs, whatever they can get away with, in fact, which is why I support a rental cap system.
Thank you, I genuinely appreciate the respectful discussion and your willingness to continue engaging on the issue. And yes, part of my goal was simply bringing more public awareness to a process many residents still do not know much about yet.
I also agree that Santa Barbara cannot and should not abandon thoughtful planning or the character that makes this city special. My concern is making sure we pursue housing solutions carefully and transparently without creating unintended costs, additional layers of administration, or privacy risks along the way.
I appreciate the conversation and your willingness to engage in good faith.
Just do what the successful people and their off-spring do – move out plenty of nice places south of Santa Barbara on the coast. Let Santa Barbara continue to be the “Land of the newly Wed, or nearly Dead.”
If you look at cycles thru the lens of decades rather than trying to educate the Lefty “Zohrans'” its easy to see its off-season for Santa Barbara, give it another 15 years and check the climate then – you will have more money, talent, and insight. These left wingers will only get older with less vitality as time goes on. Who cares about City hall they all look like they dress out of the Thrift store anyway.
Not all tenants pay enough to maintain the building that is why they are vacant – its cheaper
what a strange and uninformed comment Julie