In mid-January, more people than easily fit in Summerland squeezed into the church on Lillie Avenue for Roy Lee’s inaugural town hall — and our new 1st District Supervisor was over the moon. His Deputy Chief of Staff, Daisy Weber, carefully ran the meeting, safeguarding Roy from a full house of unfamiliar characters and issues.
Summerland’s unincorporated charm and durable sense of place greeted them, as did our love for our town. Roy spoke thoughtfully of building community consensus, and when reminded of our rancorous civic history, suggested it might help if he brought food to future meetings.
Those of us who have dived deep into the voluntary work of being active Summerland citizens are no stranger to the acrimony and personal attacks that have accompanied our decades-long community involvement. All of us remember periods of dreadful meetings and sleepless nights. Despite some recent friction, Roy’s first town hall was a cakewalk. But for those meetings ahead: yes, bring food and seat us again in the church pews.
Roy had gathered us to learn of our concerns. He got an introductory few, and Daisy made a short list. He and his staff are seeking a working perspective of Summerland and have a ways to go. In time, I hope a practical understanding of this one-off, neither-Carpinteria-nor-Montecito, nor yet fully gentrified community will emerge, one that will serve both Summerland and our new supervisor well.
I write now to remind our supervisor (and the community) that Summerland’s land use issues are uniquely juxtaposed and, by-and-large, have been exhaustively planned and litigated over many years.
For nearly a century following the 19th-century approval of a grid of small lots for the tents of East Coast settlers, Santa Barbara County paid little attention to Summerland’s seaside knolls. But in 1983, a water-related building moratorium was lifted, paving the way for a nearly 50 percent increase of Summerland’s density, practically overnight. Building applications required approval within 18 months, which triggered the freak-out of our laid-back community and an unprecedented coming together of neighbors, county staff, and expert consultants to protect Summerland’s character and plan our future. A commitment of enormous time, energy, and long-range thinking was required of all who cared for Summerland.
That historic commitment is evident now in the Community, General, Comprehensive, and Coastal Land Use Plans and zoning ordinances that are integral today to local decision-making. Summerland and our new supervisor are beneficiaries of that post-moratorium, whole-town planning, which now helps to protect Summerland and guide further development.
It’s not an accident that Summerland is still so livable and loved.
At Roy’s meeting, an appeal was made for more business parking east of Valencia on the south side of Lillie Avenue. That alarmed me because there has been significant public input and planning invested in the use of that busy, narrow right-of-way, which included a preferred neighborhood character. It is now a bikeway for well-planned reasons. The desire for more commercial parking wasn’t overlooked. I was alarmed because the influence of so many fresh interests with a fresh supervisor, sans local institutional knowledge, could further erode the community and character of Summerland over which the entire town has already wrestled.
The surge of interest in Summerland was not lost on anyone at Roy’s meeting, nor were the multiplicity of ambitions. Summerland tomorrow will not be today’s Summerland, nor will it be the Summerland I liked most yesterday. Summerland will be changed by the aims and adoration that filled the church meeting room to several times its capacity last month. Fortunately, 40 years earlier, in response to an existential identity crisis, Summerland citizens organized in that same room. And fortunately, the results of our collaboration now control what can further be squeezed into or, in a way, out of our Summerland.
