It’s Dense

This is a picture of what housing density looks like under the GPU, or General Plan Update. It is the construction project now shadowing the Santa Barbara Bowl box office. That is what happens when the city rolls over and lets developers and large scale architects take over.

I encourage you to take a walk up Lowena Drive, the entrance to this development. It is a small, narrow funky street with an active creek running under it. There are oaks and were deer until the project began. This development project has close to 20 units and maybe one parking spot per unit. Imagine what it’s going to look like with all the new residents living there. It’s Santa Barbara, so there will probably be more than one resident per unit. Street parking is limited. The thought that people won’t have cars is silly. Also, there is no supermarket nearby to support all these new residents.

Wait, there’s more. I imagine the times when the new residents are heading out and trying to turn left from Lowena onto Anapamu Street with the high school and downtown commuter traffic.

As a nearby neighbor to this project, it’s pretty clear that the city powers and architects who want “bonus density” don’t care about the current residents and the impacts of their actions. An “experimental program” doesn’t disappear once the people who okayed it realize they may have been wrong. Ask any of them if they would want this built on their street. I’d be curious to hear to their replies.