Goleta Achieves Certification of Its Housing Element

To applause in City Hall on Tuesday evening, Goleta’s city manager, Robert Nisbet, announced that the city’s Housing Element was approved by the state as of Monday, February 5.

“They don’t actually use the word ‘certified,'” Nisbet told the councilmembers. The letter from the Housing and Community Development department states that the city’s document, adopted on December 5, “is in substantial compliance with State Housing Element Law,” he said. The remainder of the substance are the city’s programs to encourage that the housing is actually built, the letter states.

For the past two and a half years, the city has been holding workshops and meetings, and writing up the lengthy documents that outline the city’s goals in adding 1,837 housing units to the city’s stock by 2031. The back-and-forth with the state’s Housing and Community Development Department resulted in a different balance of parcels than the city had intended — more in open spaces and fewer within commercial areas.

Approval lifts the burden from the city that housing projects could apply for “builder’s remedy” and go without the usual planning reviews. It also ensures that the city remains eligible for housing-related grants.

All the councilmembers thanked the planners who had done the “lion’s share” of work on the city’s Housing Element — Peter Imhof, Anne Wells, and Andy Newkirk — as well as the additional city departments and many community members who had participated.

Councilmember James Kyriaco made a point to recall the difficult decisions he and his colleagues had made. “This allows us to preserve our local planning process, use our development standards,” Kyriaco said, and ensure that Goletans could weigh in on how future growth was managed.

Eleven city parcels were rezoned during the last stages of the process, eliciting long, contentious meetings at which neighbors argued the issues of traffic and general incompatibility several projects would create. Councilmember Stuart Kasdin reminded that the success of the Housing Element was just the start. “This is not the same thing as what project review will still entail,” Kasdin said. “For those people who are concerned about a particular project, this is not the final say. This is the beginning of the process.”