County Pulls Plug on Montecito Planning Commission’s Miramar Recommendations

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This article was underwritten in part by the Mickey Flacks Journalism Fund for Social Justice, a proud, innovative supporter of local news. To make a contribution go to sbcan.org/journalism_fund.

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The Montecito Planning Commission won’t be able to weigh in on the Rosewood Miramar expansion project after all; its Friday hearing on October 18 ended abruptly for lack of a quorum. The county has said it has no plans to reschedule it. 

The project, which has elicited much community debate, includes 26 affordable housing units for the resort’s workforce, plus 13 retail spaces and eight market-rate apartments on the parking lot near All Saints-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church. 

Why the Hearing Ended

Just before the lunch recess, Miramar owner Rick Caruso’s senior vice president, Chris Robertson, said that an 18-page letter written by Montecito lawyer Philip Dracht, a well-known critic of the project, had been sent to county planning by commissioner Sandy Stahl. Robertson said this called into question the commission’s impartiality. “Why was it not disclosed during public comment?” Robertson asked.

When the meeting resumed after the lunch recess, Stahl announced she was recusing herself, which left the commission without the quorum needed to vote. The meeting was adjourned. 

Stahl told the Independent that the county’s counsel and planning department had called her to a meeting during the lunch break, where she got word that the development team was going to insist she recuse herself. 

Generally, to have a voting quorum, the commission needed three voting members in the same room, with exceptions for emergency events. Commission Chair Marshall Miller had recused himself at the meeting’s start, citing a conflict of interest, and another commissioner, Bob Kupiec, was attending remotely for a personal reason. After Stahl’s recusal, the commission no longer had the quorum necessary to vote. 

The Question Document 

County supervising planner Joseph Dargel said that planner Willow Brown received the 18-page letter two days before the meeting. He said Stahl never claimed she was the author of this document, which included a long list of questions for county staff and the development team. Dargel said that Brown forwarded the letter to the development team, who checked the metadata to see the author. 

In a written statement on Friday, Caruso said integrity was a core value for him and his company. “After two decades in this community, it is deeply disappointing to see these events unfold. We have worked incredibly hard to meet the needs of the Montecito community and to do right by our employees,” he wrote. 

In an interview with the Independent, Stahl said that she wasn’t trying to keep who authored the document a secret, and that when she became a commissioner, she was told to direct questions to the county planner assigned to the project. She said she didn’t have the chance to read the letter thoroughly before sending it because she was also reviewing another large project at the Biltmore.

Stahl said she had never met Dracht personally. “Until Friday, I didn’t even know what he looked like,” she said. 

Stahl said she had spoken to him on the phone ahead of the meeting, where he introduced himself as a neighbor. During ex-parte communication, Stahl said that she had met with neighbors in the area, but she did not explicitly mention Dracht. 

Dracht identified himself as a neighbor of the Miramar and a parishioner at All Saints, working on a team there regarding the project, but that these were his own questions, not affiliated with the church. He said he does not represent All Saints in a legal capacity. 

Commissioners’ Questions on the Project

“The focus has become the process and the questions,” Stahl said, “instead of the answers. And that’s really a shame.” 

She said it is important to know whether the county has a complete safety plan that considers the multiple major projects proposed in Montecito. 

The Miramar expansion project is just one of a number of projects seeking approval, including Biltmore Hotel renovations and renovating part of the Music Academy of the West, all below the 101. 

“Nobody is presenting a comprehensive look at how that whole area is going to function on a daily basis or in an emergency,” she said. 

At the meeting, the county said that it is working to finish evacuation modeling for the area, but is not yet complete.

 What’s Next 

Because this affordable housing project falls under SB 330, also called the Housing Crisis Act of 2019, agencies have only five hearings to come to a decision, including appeals. Presently, the project has had two hearings: the county’s on October 9 and Montecito’s on October 18. The project’s next hearing is before the county’s planning commission on November 1, where commissioners will vote whether to approve it or not.