Santa Barbara Architects Make Poodle Twitch

Putting the ‘Wow’ Back on State Street

By Nick Welsh Thu Mar 21, 2024 | 05:00am

AN ORGY OF ARCHITECTS: I admit it: Architects make me twitchy. They’re a breed apart. To be an architect in Santa Barbara — but probably anywhere — you’d better bring the predatory cool of a street hustler, the visionary authority of a high priest, and the power to blow prettier purple smoke than the most accomplished beat poet. And, of course, to be able to draw the prettiest of pictures — excuse me, “vignettes” — each more bewitching and besotting than the next. All architects are starving Michelangelos hungry for their next blank canvas. In case you hadn’t figured it out, that canvas is you.

My biases were confirmed Monday evening, March 18, as eight Santa Barbara architects — having generously donated hundreds of hours of their professional time — sought to stop 17 members of the State Street Master Plan committee from hurling themselves out the nearest first-story window.

The process of creating a master plan was hatched, I think, 17 months ago, though it’s taken so long that even committee members aren’t sure anymore. Their aim is to conjure forth a long-term vision for what Santa Barbara wants its downtown to become. The existing 10-year-old model is threadbare in the extreme unless your idea of urban vibrancy is chalk drawings on the street.

To date, the committee had been forced to rely on computer-generated renderings produced by their consultant (for which City Hall is on the hook for $800,000) showing streetscapes that are antiseptic, indecipherable, and could have been anywhere or no place at all. Any hint of a “wow factor” — or trace of Santa Barbara — was conspicuously absent.

The eight architects — known among wildlife experts as “an orgy” — succeeded in bringing a big whiff of the “wow.” Like everyone else in the room, I’m a sucker for hand-drawn sketches of streetscapes. Say the word “paseo” enough times, and I tend to drool; throw in the word “canopy,” and I’m yours.

The future they hinted at — for the eight-block stretch between Haley and Sola — drew deeply from Santa Barbara’s El Pueblo Viejo past. Santa Barbara, one said, “was Romantic chaos with a city grid.” There was much talk of meandering and sauntering. The street was like a river, another said, that had ripples and cascades and rapids and waterfalls. One commissioner praised the architects for re-injecting “poetry” back into the conversation. Another described the architects’ work as a “home run.” At one point, I found myself in need of galoshes or a cold shower.

They were that good.

Breaking the spell was Lee Heller, one of Santa Barbara’s most ubiquitous citizen activists with an uncomfortable penchant for brass tacks. The architects were operating from the 100,000-foot elevation, she opined; they would do well to descend to the pseudo-reality offered by a 30,000-foot perch. Who would pay for all these magically meandering paseos, she asked, saying, “We have to get back to reality.”

Nowhere was it clear how much of this eight-block stretch would allow cars or bicycles, either, or neither. Issues of mobility were not addressed, let alone resolved. And based on comments from the public, the debate about bikes, e-bikes, and pedestrians remains rooted in quasi-religious dogmas adhered to by mutually intransigent camps. (Interesting factoid, especially for all you suffering from e-bike panic: E-bikes account for fully half of all bipedal traffic in the city of Santa Barbara. They’re not the future; they’re the present.)

Another interesting factoid: El Pueblo Viejo is the least populated stretch of real estate within city limits. Downtowns typically are the most populated. There was much talk of economic vibrance, vitality, and other words beginning with the letter “V.” To the extent our downtown ever gets “Viagrified,” it’s because people will actually live downtown. And that, of course, means housing. Right now, only 5 percent of the downtown structures have any housing. Another interesting factoid.

A few weeks ago, City Hall gave tentative approval to a “preconceptual” still-not-quite-a-plan to build 500 units of rental housing — seven stories high, maybe — where Paseo Nuevo now stands. This would be the biggest thing to hit Santa Barbara since the earthquake of 1925.

At a recent meeting, councilmembers were told they had zero bargaining power in the deal, there was no time to dicker with the developers, and if they screwed things up by trying, the mall would remain a festering black hole for at least the next 41 years. As far as affordability went, councilmembers and the public were cautioned to lower expectations.

The only way to get genuinely affordable housing in any volume is to get the Housing Authority involved and then to build on any one of the many under-utilized parking lots owned by City Hall, the County of Santa Barbara, the State of California, and local churches.

That — like the bikes versus cars versus pedestrians feud — was not addressed in the pretty pictures. Or, to be fair, by the committee itself. Likewise for the zoning changes needed to allow all this housing downtown. Or the new utility infrastructure changes needed to accommodate such housing.

Last point: All this new housing — if we’re really serious — will beget tons of additional traffic on roads that will find themselves increasingly constrained. My self-interested two cents’ worth: The more bikes (and especially e-bikes) can supplant the demand for cars, they should be actively, aggressively, and ecstatically encouraged. Given that 42 percent of all Americans qualify as obese and health-care costs are driving America’s spiraling deficit — a line I stole from sometime S.B. resident Trek President John Burke — maybe we can kill two birds with one stone.

Don’t get me wrong. I like pretty pictures. And every picture tells a story. The pictures generously donated by the architects might prove a big help in figuring out what we want our story to become. They’re that good.