The good news is that Plan Santa Barbara did not blow up in the hands of Santa Barbara’s politically polarized City Council this week, as it easily could have. Instead, the council opted to refer the contentious debate over increased housing densities — at the core of the proposed new plan — to an ad hoc subcommittee for intensive review and analysis.
The bad news is that the subcommittee will be headed by Councilmembers Das Williams and Dale Francisco, always a volatile mix of ideological differences and alpha male egos. Also included in the subcommittee will be Councilmember Frank Hotchkiss. Williams, Francisco, and Hotchkiss are slated to meet several times and report back to the council as a whole in two weeks.
Plan Santa Barbara is the name given to the long-running effort to rewrite Santa Barbara’s General Plan, the fundamental planning document guiding growth and development over the next 20 years. Thus far, city hall has spent five years and $3 million on this undertaking, a marathon public process that’s illuminated an intractable divergence of community opinion on the question of increased housing densities within certain neighborhoods.
On one hand are champions of housing affordability and sustainability, who argue that by allowing for — and promoting — increased densities downtown and along transit lines, developers can be encouraged to build smaller units and rental units that will be “affordable by design.” This, in turn, will rectify the much discussed “jobs-housing imbalance” that’s caused tens of thousands of workers to commute daily from their homes outside of Santa Barbara to jobs on the South Coast. Or, so the theory goes. This approach has been embraced with varying degrees of enthusiasm by Mayor Helene Schneider and Councilmembers Das Williams, Bendy White, and Grant House.
On the other side are traditional slow-growthers and no-growthers, who worry increased densities will destroy Santa Barbara’s small town character while failing to make an appreciable dent in housing affordability. Likewise, they fear that the densification of downtown neighborhoods will cause increased traffic congestion. They have expressed skepticism, hostility, and suspicion of “transportation demand management strategies” aimed at reducing such congestion by promoting busing, biking, walking, and other alternative transit modes. While only three members of the council — Dale Francisco, Michael Self, and Frank Hotchkiss — subscribe to this approach, that, it turns out, is enough to bottle up any changes to the General Plan. For such momentous votes, a five-vote super-majority is required.
For two days this past week, the council sought to wrestle this greasy pig into submission. There was agreement — by a 5-2 vote — to limit the amount of new commercial development over the next 20 years to 1.3 million square feet. (Councilmembers House and Francisco — normally on the opposite side of most issues — objected, arguing the number should be higher.)

Paul Wellman
City planners Bettie Weiss (center) and John Ledbetter (left), with Assistant City Administrator Paul Casey (right)
By contrast, the current General Plan, which governed growth for the past 20 years, allowed 3 million square feet of new commercial and nonresidential development. In practice, 1.8 million square feet was either built or approved in that time. But even that figure can be misleading. That’s because a very large chunk of that development involved the renovation and remodel of Cottage Hospital.
There was also agreement not to kill outright a package of transportation demand management (TDM) strategies — much reviled by slow-growth traditionalists and the council minority — but to include them, however hypothetically, as a possible approach for some remote later date. That’s assuming, of course, the downtown business community does not come unglued.
The single most effective TDM strategy on the table, again hypothetically, is paid parking. Traffic engineers agree that by charging for downtown parking, downtown workers will either find some other way to get to work or find somewhere else to leave their cars. But business owners contend that the elimination of free parking — and the convenience that entails — will chase potential customers to shopping malls away from the urban core. And they’ve been quite vehement in their opposition.
Although the affordability advocates at city hall insist the TDM package is essential for the increased densities to work — otherwise congestion will become a much bigger problem — they’ve agreed to a tactical retreat for several reasons. In the short term, they recognize the TDM package is a certified deal killer. But long term, they recognize that free parking’s days are probably numbered, for reasons that have nothing to do with Plan Santa Barbara.
Every year, the downtown parking garages get multimillion-dollar maintenance subsidies from the city’s Redevelopment Agency. But by state law, that agency must go out of existence in the next few years. When that occurs, the parking districts will have to find another source of funding to make up for the millions lost. When that time comes, free parking will be a likely target.
Left to a future date is resolution of the density debate. Superficially, it would appear there’s consensus on both sides that the status quo is not working. That’s because current zoning and planning policies effectively encourage developers to build large, high-end condos, like the ones on Chapala Street that sparked the recent building-height showdown.
Affordability advocates contend Santa Barbara’s limited housing build-out should be focused on providing middle-class housing, objecting to the multimillion-dollar price tags these “steroidal condos” — in the words of Councilmember White — sell for. And preservationists have lamented the violence such development inflicts on Santa Barbara’s historic skyline. Still, this mutual antipathy to recent developments has not been sufficient to forge common ground.
On the table is a plan to give developers incentives — greater densities — to build smaller units, rental units, or employee housing units. In addition, the affordability crowd — which successfully fought the recent ballot initiative to limit the height of new downtown buildings to 40 feet — agreed to put de facto height limits in the new plan. They have offered a provision which that require a super-majority vote by the Planning Commission to approve anything higher than 45 feet.
The council minority has not been assuaged. Its members remain concerned that this approach is predicated upon utopian and experimental notions that may work out well in the social engineering blue prints of urban planners, but not in the real world. In addition, some have philosophical — and practical — doubts how far government should intrude in the housing market to expand opportunities for affordability. To the extent the new General Plan should encourage affordable housing, they argue, it should be for rental housing. The rub, of course, is that few developers have any interest in actually building rental housing, no matter what incentives exist on paper.
How much wiggle room exists between the two camps has yet to be probed with any force and determination. Within the next two weeks, Williams, Francisco, and Hotchkiss presumably will discover the answer to that question. On that outcome will hinge the future of Plan Santa Barbara.
Comments
Hopefully it will die in committee.
JohnLocke (anonymous profile)
October 30, 2010 at 8:45 a.m. (Suggest removal)
JohnLocke, wishing the of the death of the general plan is a cutting off of one's nose to spite one's face kind of deal. Making appropriate changes to the plan would be a better outcome than no plan at all. The free market religious beliefs of Ayn Rand types notwithstanding, planning the community will always produce a better community than simply letting a community develop by the random application of greed.
Eckermann (anonymous profile)
October 30, 2010 at 9:15 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I think it's funny that they refer to Santa Barbara as having "small town charm". What a crock! There is nothing small town feeling about downtown... maybe there are areas that do have that feeling, like Coast Village Road, the Mesa, Upper State & parts of Goleta but downtown SB lost it's "loving feeling" a while ago. I think it lost it for me when Picadilly was replaced by Paseo Nuevo. Now it's overrun with clubs (33 bars in a 3 block area right?) and transients...
May as well build down there, at least the new buildings are really cool looking and the artistic spanish look is whimsical and purposeful. IF it creates affordable housing (highly doubtful that these guys have a clue what affordable housing is because there is no such thing as affordable housing in SB) then that's great. If not, at least the buildings have character!
santabarbarasand (anonymous profile)
October 30, 2010 at 10:01 a.m. (Suggest removal)
The trend in land development, backed by the Casey / Armstrong administration, pitched by Planners, is this old, dead mixed use equation that has helped to eliminate the middle class. The collateral damage has driven land costs out of reach for locals, encouraging out of town speculators to roll the dice on unit sales w/o having financing to back these huge projects. The winner is The City with tax revenue, and the developer being allowed to bank on the multi-million dollar luxury housing up on top.
I can remember the redelvopment agency's pitch on the so called "one time rezone" on Salsipuedes and Montecito St's for the 4 story adorable housing project. Once Industrial zoned, this parcel was touted as only build-able as office space even though it had been the location of Sloane technology for years. Now that this affordable housing project went belly up, it miraculously becomes a high end work force housing project partnered by the City with an abundance of luxury units. This all might be some of the unforeseen consequences of mandated policy for affordable housing.
If they can not build projects w/o luxury units, those projects shouldn't exist. It's time The City take responsibility for it's actions and consider the outcome of making things worse before it gets better, if that's possible.
Paul Wellman's photo is spot on.
http://media.independent.com/img/phot...
The City Administration needs to live within its means. and oh by the way, i wonder whatever happened to the environmental impact report on the groundwater contamination of the old Sloane property? Did it go away since the City bought into it?
follow the $
easternpacific (anonymous profile)
October 30, 2010 at 12:28 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Interesting that it is 4-3; Bendy White seems to have forgotten that many of us bought his preservationist promises and voted for him to be part of that 3, at least in terms of land use issues. Instead he trots along with his former planning commission buddy Grant House and hob nobs with SBCAN.
I agree with Eckermann that planning is better than no planning --- but there already IS a General Plan, just some of the details need tweaking.
As for paid parking, I wonder what the models are; do they have next door many stores and ample free parking, as is so in Goleta?
citti (anonymous profile)
October 30, 2010 at 3:08 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Bendy White has never hob-knobed with SBCAN.
David_Pritchett (David Pritchett)
October 30, 2010 at 8:22 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Have to agree with SBsand and Eckerman,
Gotta pity poor Williams having to meet with Francisco and Hotchkiss every week; who haven't a clue really about Santa Barbara (they had their seats purchased by a far right Texan) and really don't intend to do anything that doesn't pander to their fantasies of aristocracy and privatization.
Nothing will get done because two of the three are simply are not Academically or experientially qualified to be making these decisions, and we may lose the one sane committee member Williams to the State Assembly, a mixed blessing as he has served our community well.
EZK (anonymous profile)
November 1, 2010 at 10:12 p.m. (Suggest removal)
santabarbarasand took the words out of my mouth. My only disagreement with her is our tastes in architecture.
billclausen (anonymous profile)
November 2, 2010 at 6:05 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Anyone been to Times Square lately? Great place, talk about planning, yes lets turn SB into NYC, yes, no, let do nothing!
contactjohn (anonymous profile)
November 4, 2010 at 10:44 p.m. (Suggest removal)