City Moves Toward Purchasing Bath Street Land

The City of Santa Barbara appears poised to spend $4.6 million to secure four older, run down homes and a 1960s-vintage 10-unit apartment complex on the 500 block of Bath Street, and “land bank” the area for a possible 50-unit affordable housing development in the future. The city council finance committee approved plans to loan the funds to the Housing Authority so that it would purchase the properties in question. Displaced tenants would be given relocation assistance. Although the Housing Authority will eventually have to pay the money back-at minimal interest-it claims a 100 percent land subsidy is required to make the project economically viable. As envisioned, the housing would be made available to downtown workers and the chronically homeless.