NEW DEVELOPMENTS

With the public comment period set to close in early December,
resistance is forming in Summerland over the large-scale luxury
home planned for the blufftops overlooking the popular local beach
Loon Point. The 7,551-square-foot home – and its nearly 2,200
square feet of guesthouses, pool cabanas, and garages – is being
built as a speculative home for Los Angeles lawyer Baret Fink. Fink
also built the massive, stone-fronted house across from the Loon
Point parking lot, currently on the market for $35 million. Citing
concerns about beach access, the geological risks of building on
the blufftop, and the general destruction of one of the South
Coast’s last unspoiled stretches of sand, locals have begun an
Internet-driven letter-writing campaign.

UCSB student activists were outraged last Thursday when the
Goleta Valley Water District shut off the water at the now infamous
Cedarwood apartment complex because the landlords did not pay the
bill. The families were evicted last August, but have since
acquired a court order allowing them to stay in the apartments
until November 30. Activists saw the water stoppage as an act of
intimidation by Conquest Student Housing, which evicted the
families to make way for higher-paying student tenants. The water
was turned back on later that same day and UCSB administrators gave
the families a check for $11,465, or $665 for each of the 17
families. Advocates hope to eventually provide $5,000 in relocation
funds to each family.