AnonymousBy Natasha Todorovic
Join your neighbors as they speak to City Council on March 26, beginning about 2:00 pm. This is when an appeal to stop the 4-story, 8 lot modern complex proposed for 711 N. Milpas St. The Architectural Board of Review said “no” and the developer is appealing the decision.
There are many reasons this is wrong for our neighborhood including public safety, the compromised process that allowed this flawed project to come this far, the size of this project which will set precedence for others of this scale, the willingness to give away city streets to a for profit developer, reduction of parking, gentrification, and more.
Public Notice can be found here. We don’t yet know the exact time and the agenda for this hearing. You will be able to locate it here on Thursday, March 21.
It will tell you roughly what time it will start. You can plan for at least 2-3 hours as there will be a staff presentation (20 min), questions by City Council, the first appellant’s presentation (20 min), questions by City Council, and the second appellant’s presentation (20 min) + questions by City Council. This will be followed by public comments where you are encouraged to speak. You don’t have to speak and you can make your opinions known by giving your time to a speaker who can represent your position. Please attend. That shows you care.
Please do not use this as the forum to learn about the issue – it is too late when it comes this far. I am against the project and would like the City to uphold the Architectural Board of Review’s decision.
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The developer should appeal the decision this project has become political all these people that are getting up and saying this project is wrong for the neighborhood is doing so for reasons other than what they are saying. They don’t like the guy he has been a businessman in this community for many years and has done alot of good for Santa Barbara but that is not good enough for some people. When the good is pushed out the bad comes in maybe that is why things are the way they are now.
Agree 100% with Roger. The neighbors against this project have engaged in witch-hunting tactics that are astonishingly vindictive and personal. The ABR is actually the real problem here, though. As a city, you can’t tell someone ‘go ahead and develop a project that fits with our ordinance’, approve their preliminary design, let them get years into the process and spend big $, and then decide not to approve the same design they approved 3 years earlier. The ABR fell for the witch-hunters’ fearmongering, and reversed themselves, finally breaking the city’s choked, mangled, and overly cumbersome development process .
And citizens wonder why no businesses can get through the planning process to open on state, or why no new housing gets built here.
The developer should sue the city, the activists and ABR members that were derelict in their duty.
Gentrification is listed as one of their objections to the building? Goodness. Let the building rise let the neighborhood evolve. The street needs a makeover, it is not attractive in the least. Everything we build today is better than 1960-70’s built places that line the street. I’ve always been puzzled by Milpas St. Whether the check cashing line out the door at the liquor stores on Fridays, the travel agents who also do your taxes and can send your money back home while helping you obtain car insurance and buy a new quinceañera dress… Milpas seems to be an affront to the expensive and tightly honed marketing image that SB proudly touts – you know, the ‘American Riviera’… Personally I’d like to see more modernization and development on Milpas. The street and its buildings should be improved and this project is a great step in that direction.
Oh the histrionics are out again against change and development… for profit no less – the HORROR!! Was it only a few years ago when the sky was going to come falling because a 4 story development on State Street/La Cumbre was going to change the city and neighbourhood as we knew it? Only to be built and do none of the horrors the fear mongers and NYMBYs foretold. I’m tired of the Chicken Littles.
I can’t imagine how a 4 story apartment building will improve Milpas Street. The place isn’t as bad as some seem to picture it.
Then leave, move to a large city…we ( born here locals) like Santa Barbara the small community not the one modeled to look like sf and my. Please go away if you think 4 story buildings are needed or wanted here thank you!
To get the approved modifications Staff and RRM Design pulled the wool over the Staff Hearing Officer’s eyes. Susan Reardon couldn’t grant the modifications to basically turn East Ortega Street into a parking lot if the project reduced parking. Staff approved a 40 foot commercial loading zone right out in front on North Milpas because the project didn’t want to provide one for its own use. The City then moved the parking places on East Ortega. So, when kids make a right off of North Milpas on their bicycles to go to schoo thel vehicles will back right up into the path of the bicycles. The City also took away a sidewalk that goes to the school. All of this for a for-profit development who also got increased density with the AUD. wasn’t that increase density enough? Why did they have to get all of these government giveaways? How many units did the owner get? Over 20! Will they be affordable? That would be a Big no! Did the City get 1 affordable unit for all of this PORK? Did the City get impact fees? Do you think Washington DC is swampy? DC has nothing on our swamp!
Build, build, build. Build sky-high. What the hell? Who cares anymore? Let the “It’s better than where I came from” faction take over Santa Barbara and make it into just where they came from—–filthy air, ugly, overcrowded. Who needs old time charm and a place for the little guy? Build away, you developer jerks. You have the blessing of all the newbies.
Dudes, Milpas looks so rundown and the architecture there is….eclectic? This would provide a nice facelift, give the area a bunch of eyes-on late at night, when stuff goes down. There are already 4 story buildings here, and the World Did Not End. Get over yourselves. That could be a cool neighborhood except for whiners like these who just want it to stay like 1960 and keep everyone out.
This would be a great town. It’s just the locals that make it suck.
Actually, it was great before newbies came which why you were obviously drawn here. DUH!!!! We’re not making this stuff up. Sb used to have much more than traffic, angry drivers, over priced restaurants, tech companies, 300 breweries/wineries that sell drinks that all taste the same (good beer but all the same). Those days are gone I get it, but it’s sucks because of the newbies not the people that made this town so desirable to you.
Am I too late? Okay, I’m not from here, I’m from L.A. and love Santa Barbara. Pearl Chase and other citizens protected Santa Barbara from developers. Shoreline park, Chase palm park, Wilcox property, other open spaces are there because of their foresight. The preservation of the “old town” Santa Barbara, the presidio and De La Guerra plaza and the adobes make Santa Barbara unique. Check out the development in Goleta.. want that? Santa Barbara is special because of the people and the architecture and the public spaces, not because of state street or a development on milpas. locals are not the problem, people trying to make money off “Santa Barbara” while destroying it at the same time.
SB observer, don’t be puzzled by Milpas. It’s business model is working while the one on State street is not. Calle Milpas is the heart of the city to many residents, it’s not about “looks” to an uptight person who only travels Milpas to go to the Trader Joe’s.
The ABR is doing its job protecting the city for the citizens, not selling out to big money developers like they have in the past. Bravo ABR!
Where the hell were some of you when Paseo Nuevo was built? Yeah your alittle late all right….We should all be working together not against. If one thing doesn’t work agree to another we all basically want the same thing.
I doubt it when someone is not liked in this town they get shot down every time it’s just like any other place there will be other buildings developers that are accepted. I never considered this man big money, Big Heart is more like it. I don’t agree with him on some things but he has a bigger heart than many others in this town that are selfish and full of greed.
You’re right. This town needs more illegal immigrants, fast food shops, gas stations and dilapidated storefronts.
Let’s face it, SB is going to have to densify and build taller if we want to provide housing without covering every available open space. And because our numbers are growing, including my family, it is seems naive to say that we can just stop building entirely. My only problem with the planning process is the lack of parking- to assume that people will not own cars with our current poor public transportation system is either ignorant or deliberately deceptive.
Your “family” does not deserve handout housing. If they can afford the available inventory of housing fine, but just raising children in this town does not buy them a free ticket to more density for the rest of us.
Always amused when people who’ve probably never owned anything in their lives tell others what to do with their private property.
The AUD program has exactly done what it was meant to do – line the pockets of the City Council campaign contributors / developers / city unions. Everything else was/is window dressing.
Defacto, again, making a lot of assumptions so you can discount my comments. Pretty common strategy. By the way, you are wrong in every assumption about my family and what I meant by that.