Old Town Goleta’s ‘Life After Redevelopment’

Old Town is the heart of Goleta. It has character and soul. What a blow it is to the city to loose these redevelopment funds. I hope they don't give up the dream of a revitalized Old Town. There's so much potential for this neighborhood. With some planning and the necessary resources, this area could be a thriving and vibrant community. And please, I hope they remember to involve and enlist the help of its residents. There's a great deal of community resources --in terms of its people-- that could be mobilized. іViva Goleta!

Old Town Goleta def needs help, ugliest retail strip south of Bako.

I completely disagree, it''s not a blight it's actually the last remnant of old Santa Barbara. It's perfect the way it is, it's the one constant in the past 30 years that has been torn down and redone per some Bren School master plan. I shop and dine out there all the time and you know what you don't see - homeless begging for change. You know what's the real blight in Old Town: that ugly Hampton Inn. Leave Old Town alone Santa Barbara;You destroyed your town stay away from this one...

A paint job maybe?

A little wider sidewalks where restaurants could have a terrace, a few trees here and there, and bike lanes. Otherwise, keep it funky, keep it real, we don't need another State Street. Look at Carpinteria, not at SB, if you want to up the charm without destroying the homey feeling of the town.

In my humble opinion two actions would be all that is needed to unleash the market forces necessary to revitalize Old Town Goleta. First and foremost, the periodic flooding problems have to be fixed along with, less important, infrastructure upgrades. Secondly, the City of Goleta should locate City Hall at or near to the Goleta Community Center while at the same time not displacing the folks who are already there. Those two policy initiatives would be enough to get the attention of investors and businesses who would then respond to demand and not fear that their investment would get flooded out once every ten years or so.

I agree with the above two, both Carp and Ventura are excellent examples. Spruced up, not Disneyfied.

Leave poor Ventura out of the mess that has become SB...
Carp is what's left of old SB and it seems that they are trying to "modernize" themselves out of existence from time to time.
While I too like the throwback nature(read "normal") of downtown Goleta and abhor the engineered, fake, Americana of the Costco Mall, Old Town is hardly wonderful since they sucked the economic life out of it. My plan would be to widen the sidewalks, eventually choke down the traffic lanes to one in each direction, and take away street parking; oh, they did that to State Street from the Arlington Theater down and the locals left in droves to the strip malls? Never mind.
But I agree CManSB that any "solution" these pea brains deploy will be worse than whatever ailment Goleta possesses. And a special thank you for acknowledging what a joke the Bren School is on these projects.

Why does every building in Old Town have to be beige?

Revitalization of Old Town goes so much deeper than a coat of paint or widening the sidewalks. The flooding issues need to be addressed before anything else is tackled on that section of Hollister. People also need to realize the culture of Old Town and the people who frequent the stores and restaurants there. State Street has become an eye sore of high-end retail and poorly chosen eateries. In an attempt to draw in tourists, we have pushed out all the wonderful character of years passed.

One main reason you don't see homeless people littering the sidewalks is that there arent high-end retail stores or other such establishments. Theres no reason to panhandle from people who are low-income.

I have to say though italiansurg, the traffic in Old Town would be greatly exacerbated if the traffic lanes are reduced to one lane in each direction. This area already experiences a lot of traffic and does not need more.

OI'm glad to see that at least there's a consensus that State St. has been destroyed, tho I would add that the influx of big corporate stores as much as an imbalance of "high end retail" that is .. or was a factor.

right on CManSB
You can't gentrify everything. The new hotel is the begining of the end.
Keep the character, keep it local, yes

It can be done without being butt ugly beige building to building.

The top priority is clear, based on the fact that about five people have died in recent years as pedestrians and as bicyclists:

We need real bike lanes.

And we need a median that provides a refuge for pedestrians crossing the street.

The quickest, easiest way to do this? Move about a dozen parking spaces on the ocean side of Hollister to off-street lots. That gives the space for the bike lanes and for the median.

We had hundreds of hours of meetings back in the mid-90s and these were the top priorities. After almost twenty years and five people dead, can we just do it? Now?