Not So Fast

In Sheila Lodge’s Op-Ed response to a previous one calling for more local housing, some of her facts are woefully embarrassing for this city — the city she called an employer, where she spent many years leading the charge against the development of much needed housing. Placing blame anywhere else on the extreme housing shortage is an attempt to defend her (and others’) actions over the past decades.

Does she really mean to suggest that the AUD program’s adding less than 85 units per year, on average, has been “very successful?” And some of those units, as she notes, are merely approved and not built.

The state is now holding the city’s feet to the fire with the requirement to meet a target of 1,000 new units per year for eight years (with penalties looming). So, in short, the City of Santa Barbara has provided a laughable number of housing units when compared to real world estimates for a growing population.

Ms. Lodge and her cohorts in the city absolutely deserve blame. She can’t simply write a letter in an attempt to make it go away.

Editor’s Note: Sheila Lodge replied: “The City of Santa Barbara doesn’t build housing nor does state law require it to do so. It does require the city to zone the city so there is the potential for developers, the ones who do build housing, to find appropriate sites for their projects.  

“And yes, the AUD program is a success. Before its adoption virtually no rental apartments were built in Santa Barbara for decades. The increased densities stimulated their production. Without the AUD program it is unlikely that any would have been built at all.”