Santa Barbara City Council Approves Streamlined Building Permit Process

Objective Design Standards Will Allow Developers to Put Their Multifamily Residential Projects on Fast Track

Examples of Mediterranean and Craftsman architectural styles that would fit the city's new Objective Design and Development Standards | Courtesy City of S.B.

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The Santa Barbara City Council unanimously approved a new ordinance providing objective design standards for city developments on Tuesday. The change comes as state law mandates that housing projects be subject to only objective design standards, which include measurable characteristics.

“Increasingly, we’re seeing the state tell us you can’t use design guidelines anymore. You have to use measurable, objective standards when you’re looking at multi-unit residential [developments], ” said Rosie Dyste, a city project planner.

Called the Objective Development and Design Standards, or ODDs, this set of standards would be available for projects in the areas of the city zoned for multifamily residences, located primarily in the city’s downtown, its Westside and Eastside neighborhoods, and in parts of upper State Street. Neighborhoods zoned for single-family units, as well as mobile home parks and accessory dwelling units and existing property additions, are not eligible to use ODDs.

Developers with projects here could either choose to adhere to these design standards, which would “streamline” the projects and allow approval in one hearing, or could adhere toward the city’s already-in-place guidelines, which would allow them to use the current review process. Per the city charter, ODDs projects would still go through design review.

An example of objective standards would be to quantify how far a window should be “recessed,” or how far away their pane should be from the wall they are built into. A subjective guideline may just instruct windows to be recessed.

The design standards include three style groups — Mediterranean, Craftsman, and Contemporary — with two variations of the style in each group. Different parts of the city have restrictions on what style developers can build in. For example, in much of downtown, only buildings in the Mediterranean style are permitted. In the historically industrial Funk Zone, however, all styles are permitted including an “Industrial Sub Style” unique to this part of the city.

[Click to enlarge] A map showing where different building “styles” will be permitted for builders using ODDs, including revisions from the October 2024 map. | Credit: Courtesy City of Santa Barbara.

Dyste said that one of the goals of the ODDs is predictability, so that developers know what to expect and what they need to achieve in their projects.

The city received a $300,000 grant from the state in 2021 to fund the work needed to create objective standards. Santa Barbara then hired Opticos Design Inc., a firm of urban designers and architects, who worked with city staff to create the plan. A group of representatives from the Architectural Board of Review, the Historic Landmarks Commission, the Planning Commission, and the American Institute of Architects advised staff through the process.

At the meeting, Dyste, along with Tony Perez, the director of form-based coding at Opticos, said that they had developed the existing proposed standards with feedback from developers, staff members and the public.

The standards are meant to be a “living document,” said Elias Isaacson, the city’s community development director, at the meeting.

“We’re committing to reevaluating our program over the course of the next two years and coming back with amendments based off the feedback we’re getting from applicants and other stakeholders in the community about the usability and effectiveness of this program,” he said.

Public comment broadly supported the standards.

At the meeting, Councilmember Mike Jordan said that while he would approve the standards, he thinks they are a “missed opportunity” to center adding more housing to the community.

Santa Barbara City Councilmember Eric Friedman | Credit: Ingrid Bostrom File Photo

“If you would have asked me three years ago what I wanted to see going through this process, we would have seen a balanced equation that clearly worked toward generating more multifamily housing on the ground than historically we have through the subjective process,” he said.

He said that personally, he felt the city could accomplish both maintaining the “look and feel” of Santa Barbara while also improving the process of evaluating working projects generating new housing units.

Councilmember Eric Friedman said one of his remaining questions was whether more regulations would deter developers or help streamline the process.

“One of the primary factors in development of new housing is the cost. There’s the land cost, but then there’s the city process itself. That’s where we get most of the complaints,” Friedman said. He later added that while the staff evaluates the program in the coming years, he would like to see if this process is “exacerbating that situation or making it better because there are clear standards that people are going through.”

The council adopted the ODDs with minor revisions, specifically changing the articulation table to start at 60 feet and including building setback requirements specifically in the plan. Along with this ordinance, they made amendments to the existing objective standards (Title 30), so that the new standards and existing standards coalesce.

The ordinance will return to the City Council for adoption on February 25.