Slow City Service

The customer service at the City of Santa Barbara Building & Safety Division is somewhere between terrible and nonexistent.

My neighbor on an adjoining property has a contractor installing a major hardscape remodel. As part of the remodel the contractor built a collection point for storm runoff and installed a pipe that carries the runoff to the property line so it flows downhill onto my property.

In mid-October I asked the S.B. Building & Safety permits office on Garden Street for an inspection to determine if the collecting and piping storm runoff onto my property was permitted and legal.

No inspection or report had been issued by the first week in December, so I returned to the permits office and was informed that an inspector had not been assigned to my case.

I returned to the Building & Safety office in mid-January and learned that the inspection I requested in October had not been performed or scheduled.

Fifteen weeks after my request in October, the S.B. City Building & Safety division has not issued an inspection report if my neighbors piping storm runoff water onto my property is permitted and legal.

The taxpayers of the City of Santa Barbara certainly deserve better service from their city than what I experienced!