Thank you, Martha Blackwell, for your December 12 letter, “Consider the Trees,” regarding Santa Barbara’s proposed plans to build affordable housing on the commuter lot at Castillo and Carrillo streets, as well as the new police station at the East Cota lot. Ms. Blackwell makes non-trivial points about the destruction of mature urban trees. In particular, I wonder why the police need to destroy trees — for their proposed new station — when an ideal piece of property adjoining their existing station could be used for expansion. Instead of authorizing another poorly designed, unattractive, and ineffective “Average Unit-size Density” development for that land, why could not the city purchase it for the Police Department’s much-needed expansion? That way would could save trees, save the Farmers’ Market, and forestall another expensive AUD mistake.
