Workforce Need Not Apply

People just don't want the traffic and congestion associated with high density housing here in Santa Barbara. That's one reason Prop Y went down to defeat so dramatically. (though only related by the fact that more housing would be created) As much as some would like to turn this subject into a racist or elitist issue, the NIMBY's just don't want any more housing to be built in town, period. They're afraid it will turn their town they love into another LA.

We already have congestion and traffic, its called the tourism industry. The low level workers can't afford SB so they also are forced to commute. Seems to me since most the tourists can't relocate here, perhaps the workers can come back home.

Building new high density is not the answer. Protecting Santa Barbara from the high-density public housing industry is the City's top priority.

If the City took the $9,393,655.00 that it gives to the Community Development Department for fiscal 2013 and used the money to buy already existing apartments in town, they would provide more low-cost housing without ruining and over-developing Santa Barbara.

'Georgy', Good Call!

Not a bad idea.

O.K. so we blame high density housing (which we don't have) and the tourists and the public housing for the traffic problems WE create.

Gregory may be correct in the figures but it is not work force housing or middle class housing opportunities but a variety of housing that meets different needs including little old gentlemen housing. And the nearly 10 million dollar figure sounds impressive. But it is just a drop in the bucket of the total real estate inventory. Not enough to create all this congestion and other societal ailments that people are complaining about.

Mickey Flacks is correct. The Hystorical Preservationists border on fascism, denying property rights and opportunities for future generations based on systemic racist and classist tendencies.

Those neophobic are represented well by the more overt Rowse, Francisco, Hotchkiss on the city council. Our General Plan result is sham and is evidenced now by Mission Canyon residents, Funk Zone, Cliff Drive residents, Cottage/Oak Park residents, housing advocates and transportation critics, etc who have all before and since needed to have problems addressed, addressed and resolved in the General Plans Updates current and past. But the "preservationists" are worried about change to every little red tiled roof, sandstone curb and hitching post in front of their windshields.

We have community processes that have been taken over by the uniform, aged and stodgy Pearl Chase Society Plans and Plantings types who are very well and secure in our community. We're supposed to fall in line with this ordinary and antiquated 1940s drive-by genre of planning and development or even scale back opportunities as the disparities and needs are now greater. So who knows, perhaps Pearl Chase may have even realized at least an error in her ways if alive today.

Was this to close a loophole of some kind? Because of CEQA every structure over 50 years old that's slated for tear down can be surveyed by a historic consultant. The rhetoric around this issue is a bit much. The new rule might even be to prevent a developer from tearing down really cheap housing to build taxpayer-subsidized "affordable" housing that won't be affordable for the people displaced. I don't pretend to know, but some of the arguments here lack enough context to be understandable. I've worked in historic consulting and it's grim. You fall in love researching a cute little bungalow that belonged to a well-known tradeperson in local history, in a historically ethnic neighborhood with a unique history that hasn't been written about, then it gets torn down and replaced by luxury condos. That's the reality. Typical development is never stopped (until the Chumash gained political muscle!) and nothing gets preserved. It's all about using documentation to give the appearance of due diligence.