Affordable Housing for Santa Barbara Unified Teachers and Staff Is in the Pipeline

One affordable housing project for Santa Barbara Unified School District teachers and staff is now underway, and a couple are in the works — including a land donation — according to the school board’s ad hoc housing committee update on Tuesday, April 23. 

The committee, led by boardmembers Wendy Sims-Moten and Gabe Escobedo, has been meeting for more than a year to explore affordable rental opportunities for teachers and staff on district-owned property. 

“In view of the challenges in recruiting and retaining district staff due to exorbitant housing costs — among the highest in the state — this group has worked diligently,” the board memo reads.

In the board’s review of the “Santa Barbara Housing Context,” Escobedo pointed out that in 2023, an average two-bedroom rental was listed at $4,400 a month, while the same unit in 2014 was $2,300 a month. 

“That is out of reach for most of our employees,” Escobedo said of current housing prices. “When we hear about cost of living issues, they’re real, especially on the South Coast.”

More than 50 percent of non-management staff are considered low-income or very-low-income — for reference, “low-income” in Santa Barbara includes single-person households making $91,000 a year — according to district surveys. Additionally, more than 20 percent travel between 20-100 miles to get to work, and more than half are renters, the surveys say. 

As laid out in an earlier Memorandum of Understanding with the city’s Housing Authority, the district is now in the preliminary stages of an affordable housing project for teachers and staff at the former Parma School at 915 East Montecito Street, which could feasibly hold 40-45 units.

Rob Fredericks, executive director of the city’s Housing Authority, explained that they tried to create this development with tax credits and other funding sources so that there is “little to no debt on the property,” allowing them to keep the rents “as deeply affordable as possible” while eventually generating some “cash flow” for the district. 

He stressed that 55 percent of renters in Santa Barbara County are “cost-burdened,” meaning that they spend more than half of their monthly income on rent. The Parma development will be restricted to cater to the lowest-income renters among district employees.

Another housing project earmarked for district staff is at the undeveloped Tatum property in the Eastern Goleta Valley, estimated to provide 110 affordable units. That project is in collaboration with the county’s Housing Authority and is in the final stages of land-use entitlement.

Additionally, the owners of the Glen Annie golf course, JTGV LLC, recently offered to donate 7.7 acres of project land (across the street from Dos Pueblos High School) to the district for developing affordable staff housing — a rare occurrence on the South Coast, especially considering the overwhelming amount of market-rate units for the county currently being proposed by housing developers. The property, like others proposed for development, will require rezoning by the County Board of Supervisors. A hearing is scheduled for next month, and the owners requested that an agreement be put in place to document its intent to transfer the land to the district following rezoning. 

Ken Rivas, the president of the Santa Barbara chapter of the California Teachers Association, said that staff see the affordable housing opportunities as a “win-win” for the district and its employees, especially in the face of staff shortages. 

As pointed out by some of the boardmembers, there are still some kinks to iron out, such as parking and traffic flow, and it will take some time for the rentals to be available. But they all seemed enthusiastic, seeing the projects as something “tangible” in providing support for district teachers and staff.