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Yahoo!The City of Santa Barbara was saddled this week with the responsibility for housing almost half the people who move into the county in the next six years. It did not volunteer for the job. Santa Barbara Mayor Marty Blum’s immediate reaction to the March 20 vote, 9-3, by the board of the Santa Barbara County Association of Government (SBCAG) — which consists of the county’s five supervisors and mayors of the eight cities in the county — was, “It’s not fair.”
Suddenly, housing is a hot potato even in North County, which gobbled up most of the new housing assignments in 2002, the last time SBCAG underwent the Regional Housing Needs Allocation, a process that occurs every six years. The state determines each county’s “fair share” of housing for California’s projected new residents, based primarily on counties’ geographical sizes. It handed Santa Barbara County 11,600 new dwelling units for the years 2008 through 2014, leaving SBCAG to tussle over where in the county to stick them. This time around, every jurisdiction, north and south, was looking to take as few as possible. The North County’s newfound passion for preserving its rural charm is accompanied by increasingly sarcastic remarks about Santa Barbara’s failure to house its own workers, many of whom commute from the North County.
It was Santa Maria Mayor Larry Lavagnino who made the motion to place 6,824 of those new units in the South County, 4,388 of them in the City of Santa Barbara. By way of comparison, the North County’s entire share is 4,776 new homes. The mayors of all seven of the other cities in the county voted in support. Lavagnino’s motion assigned the City of Goleta, whose new administration is not unfriendly to growth, a relatively modest 1,641 units, and it gave the City of Carpinteria just 305. The only SBCAG boardmembers to stand beside Blum were supervisor Janet Wolf and Salud Carbajal, who voted “nay,” even though the unincorporated South County — which they represent along with Supervisor Brooks Firestone — was tasked with accommodating only 291 dwellings.
If the March 20 allocations stand, the City of Santa Barbara will not necessarily have to rezone, because its current map has room for all 4,388 new housing units. But the city would have to craft traffic, parking, and environmental permitting procedures proving that it means business should developers step forward to build the units.
In the vote’s aftermath, critics have faulted Blum for failing to block the play, while a few members of Santa Barbara’s City Council have mentioned a possible lawsuit. The game is not over yet, though. The SBCAG board’s March 20 vote will guide staff in crafting the regional housing plan’s first draft, which is to be reviewed by the local jurisdictions. A final draft is expected by late fall. Issues that may be raised during that process include the reliability of numbers used by SBCAG’s Technical Planning Advisory Committee — composed of the various jurisdictions’ planning directors or their representatives — when it came up with its recommendations to the board, though the board didn’t follow the committee’s recommendations, which were much kinder to the City of Santa Barbara than the prevailing motion. However, the board did rely to some extent on the committee’s job statistics, which, among other things, counts Cottage Hospital as 400,000 square feet of new development rather than the remodel that it is.
During its next meeting, in April, the board will divvy up the approximately 4,600 units of the 11,600 — or 40 percent — that must, according to the state mandates, be affordable to people with low or very low incomes.
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what a whiner. "it's not fair". waahhh waahhhh.
Gee Marty, what did you do to try to negotiate a different result? You're our Mayor--you let us down. Time for a real leader, not an ineffective, weak finger-pointer.
sbsleuth99 (anonymous profile)
March 20, 2008 at 8:58 p.m. (Suggest removal)
This is why some of us supported the County split two years ago.
And just what is a South Coast member of SBCAG supposed to do to negotiate a different result with these idjuts.
Looks like the new cities of Isla Vista, West Santa Barbara, Montecito, and Summerland would be a good approach here.
FirstDistrictStreetfighter (anonymous profile)
March 20, 2008 at 9:37 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I hope our City Attorney has the creativity and gumption, with the support of the City Council and City residents to come up with a litigation strategy against this. I don't know if the defendant is the State or SBCAG or both but it is time to stop outsiders from pushing this new development mandate down out throats!!!!!!!!
sbreader (anonymous profile)
March 21, 2008 at 12:19 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Accomodate unsustainable population growth.
What a great plan.
psutton (anonymous profile)
March 21, 2008 at 8:57 a.m. (Suggest removal)
"Accomodate unsustainable population growth.
What a great plan."
psutton, you're so right. The population is out of control. So when are you selling your car, tearing down your home or better yet packing up and leaving town.
DarNel (anonymous profile)
March 21, 2008 at 12:38 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Why is the population of California burgeoning?
FirstDistrictStreetfighter (anonymous profile)
March 21, 2008 at 10:01 p.m. (Suggest removal)
If the City and County had some courage, they wouldn't let the State do their planning for them. They would refuse to participate in the destruction of their districts.
Why does the state want to ram development down the throats of cities and counties? Because developers couldn't defeat local city and county zoning.
Why did state legislators allow developers to take over at the state level? Because the campaign contributions were to good to pass up. Both democrats and republicans opened their pockets, including Pedro Nava.
Here's some of Nava's PAC $$$ donors that keep the development going. This doesn't even mention all the insurance donations he takes that benefit from over-development.
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA CONTRACTORS ASSN. MONETARY LOS ANGELES CA/90040
AMOUNT
$3,600.00
ASSOCIATED GENERAL CONTRACTORS PAC OF CA MONETARY WEST SACRAMENTO CA
AMOUNT
$1,000.00
STATE BUILD. & CONSTRUCT. TRADES COUNCIL OF CA PAC MONETARY SACRAMENTO CA/95814
AMOUNT 8/23/2007
$1,000.00
STATE BUILD. & CONSTRUCT. TRADES COUNCIL OF CA PAC MONETARY SACRAMENTO CA/95814
AMOUNT 6/30/2007
$1,000.00
IBAPAC MONETARY SACRAMENTO CA/95814-3705
AMOUNT
$1,000.00
STATE BUILD. & CONSTRUCT. TRADES COUNCIL OF CA PAC MONETARY SACRAMENTO CA/95814
AMOUNT 5/17/2007
$1,000.00
GRANITE CONSTRUCTION INC. MONETARY WATSONVILLE CA/95076
AMOUNT
$1,500.00
ASSOCIATED GENERAL CONTRACTORS PAC OF CA MONETARY WEST SACRAMENTO CA/95691
AMOUNT
$1,500.00
TAMCO RANCHO CUCAMONGA
AMOUNT $500.00
Georgy (anonymous profile)
March 23, 2008 at 5:09 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Good info Georgy! Here's the problem though, the growth has to go some where, and the best place is downtown SB. High density high rises are not necessarily bad. In fact, the density makes environmental and economic sense. The buzz word is Canyonization, but so what? It's better than sprawl. With high density housing, there is less need for transportation, and leads to a pedestrian oriented downtown. Sprawl, on the other hand, reinforces the LA/Ventura, car based system, which I abhor! If you've ever spent any amount of time in a large city (NY/Chicago), you'd know how great a casual stroll down to the market/restaurant/theatre/bar/shop/school/etc can be.
Plus, SB needs to expand it's housing. I'm a med student, born and raised in SB, but currently in Chicago. Even with a decent physician's salary, there is no way I will be able to afford a million dollar home necessary in SB to start a family (student loans > $250,000). If physicians can't make it in SB, how do you think nurses, teachers, police, etc do it? They don't! SB will die a slow death if there is no one here to support the wealthy. It's either more housing, or a massive commuter/car based economy. I'll take the canyonization.
Chicalifornian (anonymous profile)
March 24, 2008 at 12:44 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Chicalifornian,
Your' re right on point. Santa Barbara is going to hell fast not becuase of too much development but because of the wrong kind of developemnt, the NIMBY's, those that don't understand urban growth and planning. If the weather was better, I'd move from Santa Barbara to Chicago faster than you can say "L".
DarNel (anonymous profile)
March 24, 2008 at 3:21 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Chicalifornian,
"the growth has to go some where"
Your premise that it has to be in Santa Barbara or California is false.
The United States has plenty of cheap housing. If you go to Las Vegas or Phoenix the majority of the population there actually want the growth, unlike the people of Santa Barbara and California who don't want more over-development. If the doctors and teachers leave, people here who have $$ will have to pay more for those services if they want them to exist locally. Housing prices here will NEVER be affordable no matter how many houses are built.
Your being used by developers to have the mentality that things will become affordable. They won't. If it wasn't all just about development the City, County, and State could easily just buy pre-existing housing and give it to doctors and teachers. But they don't because politicians like Pedro Nava continue to take $$ from development PAC's to run their campaigns.
Georgy (anonymous profile)
March 26, 2008 at 11:46 a.m. (Suggest removal)
It isn't right that Santa Barbara doesn't house its own workers. Why should the people who work in Santa Barbara have to live in Lompoc, Buellton, Ventura, and Santa Maria? How can it possibly be good for the environment to have the people who work here traveling 100 miles every day?
jimstoic (anonymous profile)
March 27, 2008 at 2:18 p.m. (Suggest removal)
We are all forgetting one important piece of this debate... where is all the new H20 going to come from to support this growth? We need to demand a honest EIR on water sources and availability now and in the future. I bet the State can not prove it has enough to meet all the growth it is pushing on our communties.
LRaf (anonymous profile)
March 27, 2008 at 5:07 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I wonder what effect this would have on City of SB's capacity to receive transfered development rights from the Gaviota?
martha (Martha Sadler)
March 30, 2008 at 12:25 p.m. (Suggest removal)
"The North County’s newfound passion for preserving its rural charm is accompanied by increasingly sarcastic remarks about Santa Barbara’s failure to house its own workers, many of whom commute from the North County."
Three words: Too many people. (!)
Let's cut through the sarcasm and get to the point: The North County sees that S.B. has turned into a smaller version of L.A. and do not want the attendant problems of "Paradise" and whether or not they react to it in the proper manner ignores the fact that Santa Barbara is trying to put ten pounds of sand into a five-pound bag.
Also, Mayor Blum has made Santa Barbara a Sanctuary City, and while I commend her sincere efforts to humanely treat illegal immigrants, this only encourages the endless flow of people across the border which is the main source of population increase.
The solution is the work together on both sides of the border and fix what is wrong in Mexico and if that means offending people on both sides of the political aisle then so be it.
billclausen (anonymous profile)
March 30, 2008 at 6:11 p.m. (Suggest removal)
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