Rezones and Upzones

I’m writing to respectfully correct some misstatements in April Reid’s February 25, 2024, letter criticizing my recently published Voice, “What Comes After Housing Element and Zoning Approvals? Final Projects Depend on the Permit Review Process.”

In her letter, she wrote that at the December 5, 2023, City Council meeting, I indicated that there would be building on Kenwood Village, even without any updated traffic or environmental study. This is inaccurate. One of the primary purposes of my February 14 article was to reassure members of the public that passage of Goleta’s housing element did not mean that the decision-making process on the new housing had come to a conclusion. In fact, any new housing project will require an environmental review in order to be considered by the City Council.

She also wrote that the City Council told the staff to find properties to rezone/upzone based on whether a property owner was willing to build high density housing, not whether the site was a good site to build on. The reality is that the state made clear that it would not certify a plan which primarily relied on zoning changes to already developed or underutilized parcels. The state would only approve a housing element in which the city would rezone vacant land, with landowners who would express a willingness to build. In short there was a limited pool of parcels that the state would accept if it was going to approve our housing element.

Nevertheless, the council reduced the initially proposed zoning for the Kenwood site from its original proposed housing density by about 33 percent. But that is not the final word. We have not yet evaluated whether that density now in the housing element makes sense or not.

Going forward, we will evaluate each project, as the developers submit their proposed projects. We will start with a comprehensive traffic study to ensure that we capture the full spectrum of traffic impacts. Once a specific housing project’s impacts are determined, we will consider the options to mitigate those impacts and/or to reduce the project’s size, bulk, and scale as necessary.

I urge Goleta residents to stay involved and weigh in, as we enter the next phase of evaluating each project as they come forward.