George Relles

Goleta's City Hall

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The City of Goleta has been in existence for more than seven years. In that time it has established a staff and a City Hall, conducted three elections for City Council, made and met several budgets, and presided over a generally prosperous, self-governing Goleta.

To name only a very few of Goleta’s accomplishments: resisted development on Bishop Ranch, attracted a Best Buy to fill in for a defunct Circuit City, contributed to the revamping of the Girsh soccer fields, pushed back against UCSB’s ambitious long range development plans, and supported firefighters’ valiant battle against the Gap Fire. Our roads continue to be fixed, new hotels are being built, and self-government is alive and well in Goleta.

George Relles

The field at Girsh Park whose artificial turf Goleta Council helped fund.

Still, a burning question in the minds of many Goleta residents is, “Why is Goleta’s General Plan still in flux, and when will the seemingly endless process to revise it end?” The General Plan is supposed to be a kind of road map that sets forth our major policies on Goleta’s physical development over the next 10 years. So residents want to know: How many times do we have to go to workshops, Planning Commission meetings, and council meetings in order to make sure that the plan we want is the plan we get?

Others ask how many times we will have to tell city leaders that we want strong environmental protections built into our plan. How many ways do we need to say that Goleta doesn’t need another regional shopping center? How loudly do we need to say that we don’t want growth we can’t afford?

The answer comes to us from the words of Napoleon Bonaparte: “Victory belongs to the most persevering.” There are just a few key meetings left that will decide the General Plan and with it, the future of Goleta.

Goleta’s first General Plan came out of an extensive process that included a series of public meetings, hundreds of hours of spoken and reams of written resident testimony. Then, in 2006, a new council majority came to power saying that the original plan was a good one, it merely needed to be “tweaked” to create more “flexibility.” Also the State of California played a part by rejecting the original Housing Element.

George Relles

Best Buy in Goleta

That council majority, and staff, then created a process comprised of about five days of workshops, and public hearings costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, with hundreds of written comments and testimonies. Despite much community resistance, the majority then initiated a rather large number of plan amendments, half of which were proposed by developers. The amendments were classified into several “tracks.”

The Track 3 changes were the most substantial. They required an Environmental Impact Report (EIR), which was completed just this year. Then the public was invited (again) to comment on the EIR. All the information on Track 3 amendments can be viewed at the City of Goleta’s Web site.

At the same time, some developers and property owners sought other General Plan changes to move their individual developments forward, even though such changes would take effect before the General Plan was revised and would apply citywide, not to their projects alone. This required more testimony by residents.

All this has led to “testimony fatigue.” Many Goleta residents are stressed in this tough economy. Some are working overtime or two jobs. They have precious little time to spend with their families. So, many want to know, just how many times they are expected to show up at workshops and hearings to keep working on this General Plan? And most of all, many are asking, if our General Plan is made more “flexible,” won’t they have to go to every Planning Commission meeting and every council meeting every time a developer brings in a bevy of lawyers or a pod of PR professionals to promote a development?

Well, the end is in sight. At its July 27 meeting, Goleta’s Planning Commission took up some of the Track 3 changes. They engaged in professional, intelligent, non-ideology driven discussion on key amendments under consideration, such as scrapping Goleta’s growth management ordinance and eliminating the prohibition against more regional shopping centers.

As anyone watching the hearings would agree, the five planning commissioners deserve our congratulations and gratitude for their selfless, apolitical, public-service orientation. They are Chair Brent Daniels and Commissioners Doris Kavanagh, Julie Kessler Solomon, Bill Shelor, and Jonny Wallis.

On August 24, 2009, the Planning Commission will convene again for its final vote on these amendments as well as other proposed amendments. Perhaps most important are amendments to reduce significant environmental protections, in particular setbacks from creeks and environmentally sensitive areas. I will report on their conclusions in my September column.

The Planning Commissioners’ recommendations will go to a City Council meeting, probably in September, for what should be a final decision.

Okay, so by now, you know the routine. The public is once again invited to attend the Planning Commission and City Council meetings and voice opinions on these proposed changes. Yes, it seems like we shouldn’t have to keep attending meetings, and sending letters, emails, and faxes expressing our issues and concerns, having done so numerous times in the last seven years. But in the immortal words of Woody Allen, “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” I hope to see you there.

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