If You Build It

In response to pressure from state housing officials concerned
that Santa Barbara County accommodate its fair share of the state’s
burgeoning population, the county Planning Commission unanimously
approved a new housing policy to rezone 62 acres — yet to be
determined — for the construction of 1,235 new housing units. Even
though the North County has only half of Santa Barbara’s
population, its leaders agreed to take on two-thirds of the new
housing. The Planning Commission’s action comes more than two years
after the state’s initial deadline.

Neighborhood preservation advocates blasted the document — known
as the Housing Element — arguing that county politicians should
insist on local control and defy the state’s housing mandates. They
claimed upzoning, increasing the allowed density, would diminish
the quality of life and there was no guarantee that any of the new
housing would be affordable to low- or middle-income families.
(County planners said at least 245 of the units built as a result
of the rezone would be affordable.) From the other side of the
fence, affordable housing advocates complained the document was way
too little, way too late. Bud Laurent with the Coastal Housing
Partnership — a coalition of large employers trying to address the
shortage of affordable housing for their employees — noted that
between 1990 and 2000, 17,000 new jobs were created on the South
Coast, but only 2,000 new homes were built. That imbalance, he
charged, contributed to increased freeway congestion and air
pollution. Laurent complained that the South Coast was doing far
less than its share to house its workers. The Housing Element must
now go before the county supervisors for final approval.