Island View Preschool Overcomes ‘Daunting’ Process to Open Daycare in Santa Barbara

Prospective Preschools Face Development Process That Is Often ‘Restrictive, Slow, and Costly’

A peak inside Island View Preschool. | Credit: Courtesy

For Island View Preschool, a new daycare in Santa Barbara’s Riviera Business Park, it took nearly two years and $180,000 to open their doors this past November — about double the time and quadruple the expected cost.

Their fence alone cost $30,000.

“There’s a lot of red tape involved to have children in a space,” said Executive Director Juniper Dwight, a Montessori teacher with 20 years of experience. “We just persevered.”

But Santa Barbara desperately needs more childcare options, particularly for low-income families and working parents. With a shortage of 9,000 childcare spots, long waitlists have become common, according to the Santa Barbara Foundation.

One reason Dwight started the school was because her daughter couldn’t find quality childcare for her own kids, she said.

Island View Preschool’s exterior, featuring the $30,000 fence. | Credit: Courtesy

Wanna Open a School?

A difficult hurdle to clear when opening a daycare is simply finding a space.

However, for Dwight, a location basically fell into her lap.

The Yardi family, known for being one of Santa Barbara’s philanthropic housing developers, bought the Riviera Business Park in 2022. Jason and Robin Yardi offered Dwight — their children’s former preschool teacher — a space in the park, but she was working on opening another school at the time, the Manzanita Montessori School in Ojai.

“When the space was offered to me, I thought, ‘If there were two of me, I could do this,’” she laughed. But then a lightbulb went off.

She thought of her friend Cathy Smith, a teacher of 30 years, and called her up, asking, “Whatcha doing? Wanna open a school?”

After pulling in Smith’s sister, Maida, they immediately went about establishing themselves as a nonprofit, which meant reduced rent from the Yardis, and they were off.

They had the space. They had the manpower. The rest should be easy enough, right?

Nope.

Island View’s founders, from left: Maida Smith, Cathy Smith, and Juniper Dwight. | Credit: Courtesy

Jumping Fences and Red Tape

“So many people have been shut down or given up on their goal to start a childcare center because it’s so hard,” Dwight lamented.

Their fence was so expensive because their building happens to be a city historic landmark. It needed to be a wrought-iron fence to match the park’s architectural aesthetics, as well as meet ADA and childcare licensing requirements.

And that was just one of the many hoops they had to jump through. Various factors contributed to a longer, more costly development process, explained Elias Isaacson, the city’s community development director.

That included state and local permitting, meetings with surrounding businesses, loans, licensing, staffing, city commission meetings, installing drywall, and inspections from different agencies.

Challenges also arose from the location, location, location. The park is not zoned to allow “childcare by right,” in technical terms, which necessitated a conditional-use permit.

Unexpected road bumps, including a miscommunication from the city’s building department staff concerning a different permit, led to further delays. However, the women did have the help of the city’s newly hired ombudsman, who assisted them in the complex endeavor.

“It was by no means an easy process,” Isaacson said, praising the women’s perseverance.

This process is often “restrictive, slow, and costly,” explained Eileen Monahan, a childcare consultant in the city who helped Island View navigate city regulations.

Nearly every operator she’s worked with, she added, has become discouraged at some point — sometimes even before getting started.

Tight margins make permitting costs prohibitive and add to the difficulty of hiring experts to navigate the process. In most areas, building a new facility is not possible due to land costs, so most new centers are retrofits of buildings created for other uses.

“Even seasoned professionals face challenges due to a shortage of resources and complex and varying policies across communities,” she said.

Throughout the process, Island View had to pay their rent with no income.

“Because of the delays that we underwent in our permitting process with the City of Santa Barbara, we have a cash-flow crunch that we will be dealing with for some time,” said Maida Smith. “The good news is that we have already received rave reviews from our new students and families.”

They could not have done it on their own. But luckily, they didn’t have to.

Community Support

Island View’s landlords, the Yardi family, were incredibly supportive, they said, and helped cover the cost of the fence since it is a permanent fixture on the property.

Donations, grants, and technical support poured in, including from the Santa Barbara Foundation (SBF) and the Children’s Resource & Referral (CRR) of Santa Barbara County. They also received donated time and advice from architects, contractors, and others in the community.

“The process is daunting,” said Island View Director Cathy Smith. “There is a lot to be said for naivete, optimism, and perseverance. I have to say we found true support from a lot of key players in both the [city’s] planning department and the building department, too.”

The school’s five teachers stood by them throughout the process, Dwight said. On November 18, 2024, the school opened for a small number of preschool-age students, and in December, they started their first infant class.

While admission currently ranges from $650 to $1,775 per month (based on age and schedule), Dwight said they want to raise money to eventually provide scholarships and help working families who could not afford it otherwise. “We believe education is for everyone,” she noted.

A View of the Future

“Finding a preschool turned out to be more challenging than we had imagined, especially as first-time parents not realizing how early we were supposed to begin the waitlist process,” said Christina Wiesendanger, a parent who works at the clothing company Toad&Co. “We’re so happy to be able to enroll our daughter in Island View. It is, quite literally, next door to my office, cutting my commute time and allowing us to spend more time with our daughter both before and after drop-off.”

The childcare landscape in Santa Barbara County may seem bleak — SBF’s needs assessment found just one licensed space for every 10 infants and toddlers — but there’s progress underway.

Goleta, for example, updated its zoning policies to make it easier to start centers and recently approved $250,000 for childcare improvements. The county has also made changes, and state reforms now exempt family childcare homes from local permitting.

Island View Preschool began programming in November. | Credit: Courtesy

In 2023, the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors allocated American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to support childcare recovery efforts, including $1.125 million to SBF to collaborate with the CRR and County Education Office to improve access to childcare by 2025.

Through this ARPA-funded project, SBF and CRR have analyzed land-use policies and trained planners to prioritize childcare. “It’s encouraging to see their enthusiasm for policy changes and willingness to help,” Monahan said.

The Board of Supervisors also approved nearly $200,000 for a partnership with Goleta Union School District and Harding School Foundation to expand after-school programs for older kids.

“Quality childcare is vital — not just for children’s development but as support for working families and the local economy,” Monahan noted. “Expanding access is an investment in our community’s future.”

Key strategies include incorporating childcare into housing developments, streamlining regulations, reducing costs, and increasing investments to open more centers.

Island View’s founders hope their story will inform and inspire others, and nudge the city to find ways to expedite the process. “The city has a crisis, and there are people willing to help,” Dwight said. “We need to make it easier for more people to open quality childcare centers in this town.”

Island View Preschool combines the philosophies of Reggio Emilia, Montessori, and Outdoor Classroom. It is open Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-5:30 p.m., and provides care for infants and children up to age 5. While their infant program is currently full, the school is accepting applications for their preschool program. Learn more about how to apply at islandviewpreschool.com/admissions.