Provide Input on the Future of De La Guerra Plaza

Source: City of Santa Barbara
As a result of the pandemic, there have been many changes to downtown Santa Barbara—State Street in particular. Please provide your input on a brief questionnaire regarding the concept plan for the historic center of downtown, De La Guerra Plaza. Some context, explanation and visuals can be found at the following link, along with the questionnaire.
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43 Comments
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Oct 19, 2021 09:21 AMA cactus garden.
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Oct 19, 2021 09:39 AMA year-round farmers market with semi-permanent covered stalls/tables that have water and electricity. Decomposed granite....no grass.
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Oct 19, 2021 04:22 PMwell babycakes and i never agree...until now. this is the absolute best idea i have heard!!!!
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Oct 19, 2021 07:09 PMThat would be very cool. European style, except the produce would actually be local. In Europe it's all from the fringes of Spain or Africa.
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Oct 19, 2021 10:10 AMI second BABYCAKES because we might as well have a mercado downtown, managed so that individuals or groups can rent a stall for a few days at a time or per month but not get entrenched. Make it lively, a place where non-profits can sell food or handicrafts for fund-raising, and where you never know what you might encounter. The Beach ArtWalk and the Farmers' Market are locked in with certain vendors, I'd like to see a place where local artists or clubs could set up temporarily and shill to the public.
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Oct 19, 2021 10:56 AMI like these suggestions --- and do not like the proposed splash pad (aka "water feature") that belongs more in a park for children ---- oh, yes, there is planned to be a splash pad in Ortega Park , less than a mile away from City Hall and State Street.
The de la Guerra Plaza should not be focussed on "toddlers", any more than it should be for seniors or any other specific demographic but for all of Santa Barbara. (Two of the commissioners with infants of their own and expecting another drove this support while others were silenced, perhaps by not wanting to seem anti-child.) Not coincidentally, perhaps, both are running for election this November.
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Oct 19, 2021 07:08 PMExactly. Making the DLG plaza a focal point for toddlers is a really weird choice. I hate it.
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Oct 19, 2021 12:44 PMWhose brilliant plan was it to propose an "interactive water feature" during the worst drought in over a century?
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Oct 19, 2021 03:19 PMRob Dayton, former transportation chief, and other staff supported it strenuously. No one claimed actual parentage, however. (Santa Barbara is staff-run, with councilmembers and commissioners assigned to the yes, sir, roles.)
Who is behind this poll? Who decided what questions to ask? As anyone who's done polls knows, the designer of the poll structures the questions and, unless there's careful scrutiny, is responsible for the lean and the answers received.
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Oct 19, 2021 04:10 PMDayton was a disaster. Anything he touched should be withdrawn and revised by people without agendas.
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Oct 19, 2021 04:21 PMworst drought in history? My god you people are just weird AF! It's a cycle, part of living here. We are in a La Nina pattern, then it will be El Nino and it will be wet. IT's a cycle that has been going on for hundreds if not thousands of years. It's not a drought when it's part of a repeating cycle.
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Oct 19, 2021 04:34 PMIn case you haven't noticed, we've been messing with the cycles.
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Oct 19, 2021 08:40 PMZero: Lmao oh so manmade climate change doesn’t exist, it’s a “cycle.” I’m glad the peanut gallery’s resident scientist cleared that up for me. I was getting worried after seeing the overwhelming evidence *checks notes* everywhere, and the consensus of climate scientists.
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Oct 19, 2021 01:23 PMWhy should a citizen give ideas when the "administration" has already made the decisions? We have no input at all.
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Oct 19, 2021 02:14 PMMake De La Guerra Plaza a miniature of London's Hyde Park Corner. Permeable hard landscape; four mini lecterns at corners for speakers on any subject with definable time limits; scattered benches and drought-tolerant plants for listeners and other visitors; one police officer to maintain order. As in London this will bring many locals and visitors to the site.
William Smithers
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Oct 19, 2021 02:19 PMTurn it into a giant, public pool with a swim up bar.
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Oct 19, 2021 04:20 PMyes! I'm with Sac on this....and i don't drink alcohol.
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Oct 19, 2021 02:52 PMWhat an absolute waste of money. A useless portico and pave over everything is supposed to be an improvement? Meanwhile, 10 yards away, store owners are hosing urine off their front doors just to open. Use the money for bus tickets back to Portland and clean up state so families feel safe there again.
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Oct 19, 2021 04:19 PMhey monkeyboi, i manage a shop on state street. please show me the shop owners that have to wash away urine every morning. sounds like political ramblings from a republicant. So you're saying all homeless people come from Portland? God that's just stupid. period.
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Oct 19, 2021 05:46 PMI walk down there sunday mornings and business owners are literally bleaching the streets. Nice that you got a good spot.
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Oct 19, 2021 07:07 PMZero, I am literally on State Street daily on foot or bike and it absolutely smells like urine all the time. Some places like the parking lot stairwells always stank, but I don't remember State Street smelling until a few years ago. With all due respect, perhaps you've lost your sense of smell?
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Oct 21, 2021 11:09 AMZero: the take away from this is that yours is one of the stores stinking to high heaven of urine. And your sniffer has malfunctioned.
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Oct 19, 2021 03:49 PMMedieval stocks instead of
"Catch & release".
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Oct 19, 2021 07:05 PMHahaha. People give you so much cr*p on this website but I think you're pretty funny.
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Oct 20, 2021 12:44 PMYeah they do Townie..
But have you ever seen a person describe themselves to a sketch-artist?..
They end-up looking like monsters..& that's what I do..I show people
"pictures-of-themselves"..
& they don't like who they see.
Put Stocks in the plaza, & I will go 1st ..like a leader.
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Oct 19, 2021 04:03 PMI'd love to see a food truck court! SB has been really hard on them and those folks could use a place to do business.
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Oct 19, 2021 06:26 PMSB Public Market is your downtown "food truck" equivalent - patronize it. Whatever goes in should not compete with downtown businesses - including a 7 day a week "Farmers Market". City needs to stop destroying downtown brick and motar retail.
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Oct 19, 2021 07:05 PMTrue. I like Rowse but one beef I have with him is his previous treatment of food trucks while on the council. Food trucks are cool.
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Oct 20, 2021 09:09 AMI do patronize the Public Market, Byz. I can also patronize food trucks. I don't really eat downtown otherwise, in fact. So nowhere in that part of State St. is losing my business if there is a food truck.
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Oct 19, 2021 04:08 PMOnce again the 'survey' is biased by the agenda of the people offering it. The choices do not include things I do 'downtown' such as use the library or attend to business for example. It also demands answers that I do not agree with in the limited priority list. This is basically window dressing it seems.
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Oct 19, 2021 04:17 PMum probably because going to the library has nothing to do with DLG Plaza, same with "attend to business".
read it as it is dude....and remember, the city doesn't revolve around you. the questions were pertinent to "business" around DLG plaza.
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Oct 19, 2021 06:21 PMZero--so the whole rest of the city is supposed to subsidize and create a play area for the few people who "live around" the public plaza???? Only those people can participate and create policy on how to spend our money? Nonsense. The survey is clearly loaded to get results that the Bren School social engineers are looking for.
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Oct 20, 2021 06:49 AMAgree w Babycakes too. Great idea. Screw the water feature and goofy playground ideas.
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Oct 20, 2021 08:13 AMHow absurd!
City staff, from the city manager on down, are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and none of them have an idea or vision. Hasn't this been studied and discussed multiple times?
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Oct 20, 2021 09:12 AMThey're probably prowling this board to get ideas. Then will claim it as their own.
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Oct 20, 2021 12:03 PMWhat's presented IS the city staff's vision! None of them are architects or architectural historians. And it was offered to the committee for its approval or disapproval ----- and only in the details, lighting, for instance, not the overall design.
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Oct 20, 2021 08:59 AMSome of you remember De La Guerra street going through to Chapala in what is now the Paseo Nuevo mall. It was closed permanently and forgotten to expand the mall footprint. Time to do the same here. Start by tearing out all of the road and curbing structures that are currently on De La Guerra Street or in the plaza. Make everything level ground, (no more curbs) and install wall to wall pavers. The plaza will now be shaped like a "T" and be much larger and accommodating. Decorate accordingly. Deliveries/pickups can enter via a one way entrance from State to exit at Anacapa. Install a variety of outdoor planters and trees. Allow for restaurant-based tabled seating that extends into the plaza so it's similar to Spanish style plazas in places such as Madrid, etc. The idea is to expand open space and remove awkward curbing while creating a gathering space that will thrive. Keep it plain. No need to add whimsical fancies. Additions can all be portable and function for specific events. But center it with a removable but permanent stage for music, festivals, speakers, etc.
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Oct 20, 2021 09:08 AM100% agree. Great plan. Minus the pavers. Fine with hardscape, but no pavers! Pavers are a scourge on this land! I laugh when I see 6 million dollar houses with pavers. Home Depot Special.
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Oct 20, 2021 09:25 AMAny attempt to make this a flexible multi-functional space. as suggested - typically fails at everything while becoming one more unsavory transient and grifter magnet. Just like we already learned from the installations the fountains, benches and brick seating "sculptures" on State Street which became grifter magnets. Or the mandated gardens in front of the West Carrillo Street Ralphs market, instantly became a vagrant hangout.
Until the transient-grifters problem are solved, we simply cannot keep adding more "nice things" in this town. Past is prologue. Take the blinders off and stop repeating stupid. Crime Is now up 50% in the surrounding neighborhoods after the city's misguided and counter-productive Rose Garden Motel project went in.
No new activity in DelaGuerra Plaza is going to bring people downtown when downtown itself continues to be the current wreck that it is. Deal with the real; not the wishful thinking that has plagued this town's decision makers for far too long. Static low-maintenance landscaping at minimal costs is the only viable option right now, until State Street itself can be re-vitalized. Reworking the massive Paseo Nuevo space should be priority. Then any Dela Guerra plaza makeover can flow from that.
Best to be done right now is turning it into a large electric bike center and require all city employees and council members use only electric bikes, so they can act out in real time the mandates they want to impose on the rest of us.
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Oct 20, 2021 10:41 AMYou must of stubbed a toe or two in your travels. I know the feeling. If not done right it can be a nightmare. Maybe call it 18th century repurposed cobble stone. Add a little romance to smooth the surface.
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Oct 20, 2021 09:15 AMThere is nothing wrong with De la Guerra Plaza - except our so called "City Leaders".
Water it, mow it and leave it the hell alone.
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Oct 20, 2021 12:00 PMAt the start of this re-imagining process, one that was held when most people could not "attend" via Zoom, Friday mornings, they made sure that all the grass was dead and that the Plaza was unattractive to any but the passed-out homeless who often were there passed-out, natch.
If there is going to be a redesign, it should start fresh, without "water features" and arcades but have as an option simplicity --- and then have 3 or so options, including one with parking retained, submitted to city residents for a vote. Noticeable was that the prime landowner at the south end, the News-Press building owner, had no input into the designs offered. (She was invited but probably not as a co-equal.)
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Oct 20, 2021 10:17 PMSurvey is flawed. "Other" needs to be part of each Q &A. Do nothing was not an option anywhere. No mention of keeping lawn. Why is arcade even being considered. It takes views away and serves no purpose. It's all busy work. Pavement of any sort is abominable for keeping the city cool. Very poor thinking is going on. There is no thought to consequences. Leave De La Guerra Plaza alone. Water the lawn. Maintain what we have. Plant a tree. Put in a bench. Keep it simple. As someone else said, we have studied and planned this spot to death. It's a free speech area.