Isla Vista Needs More Housing, but at What Cost? 

UC Santa Barbara and S.B. City College have failed to provide adequate on-campus housing for their students, creating a situation in Isla Vista where many property owners may charge outrageous rents. Single rooms are $3,000 and more, forcing students to live three to a room, live in garages and living rooms, or in illegal lofts. Some landlords now rent by the bed to maximize their returns. Many students work extra to afford these rents, relying on their cars to get them safely to and from work.

The half-square-mile of Isla Vista now has 20,000 residents per county data. There are only 2,772 on-street parking spaces. Proposed safety improvements will remove 257 of those spaces. ADUs (accessory dwelling units) being built on existing parking areas will add to the loss. Meanwhile, the number of cars in Isla Vista already exceeds the number of legal parking spaces on a regular basis.

Cars are routinely parked in red zones, in front of fire hydrants and driveways, and on corners and sidewalks. This has created an extremely dangerous health and safety problem. Visibility has become difficult for drivers, unable to see pedestrians and bicyclists. There were two bicyclists hit by an SUV at an I.V. intersection on May 13, one woman was critically injured. While a proposed enforcement program will help, new development is adding hundreds of new cars that have no place to park.

The state has changed the rules (e.g., Housing Accountability Act, SB 330, Builders Remedy, AB 2097, ADU Streamlining) for residential development. Counties cannot follow their previous, carefully crafted regulations for project height, setbacks, density, and parking. The new laws prevent denials or even reductions in density unless a project would have a specific adverse impact on health and safety.

Developers can now bypass the local zoning laws, and a gold rush is on to build excessively in Isla Vista. I.V. needs more housing, but at what cost? Can the impacts of these oversized projects be moderated?

Looking at the proposed, approved (and several recently built) projects before the county, there are at minimum 40 new projects in Isla Vista. Altogether, these add 450 new bedrooms. The total added parking in all these developments is 100 spaces — when these developments will bring at least 900 new cars to Isla Vista (calculated at two people per bedroom, not the three that will most likely occur.)

Isla Vista is already at 106 percent parking capacity. Where are those 800 cars going to go?

There is no overall plan for managing this massive amount of new growth in this highly populated and congested area. Services are inadequate. No infrastructure exists to accommodate the growth. Isla Vista’s streets are narrowed by parking on both sides, impairing access for first responders and law enforcement, while increasing risks for pedestrians and bicyclists. A dangerous environment will be made even worse.

Many residents request larger projects be put on hold until infrastructure improvements have been put in place.

For example, the proposed development at 6737 Sueno Road will be the first three-story apartment building in the SRM-18 zone (Student Residential Medium Density 18 units per acre). Previously, 10 bedrooms would have been the maximum for this property with 20 on-site parking spaces required. Now there will be 45 bedrooms with only 21 parking spaces, using the Housing Accountability Act/SB 330 State Density Bonus concessions. That is at minimum, 70-100 spaces short depending on the numbers of renters per bedroom.

This block has only 77 parking spaces; it is at capacity already. Just this one project will have a health and safety impact on our community. There are at least three more proposed projects like this planned in the same zoning area.

My husband and I are appealing this project. The appeal hearing is on the Board of Supervisors agenda for September 9.

If the applicant is unwilling to reduce the size of this project, so as not to exacerbate preexisting health and safety issues due to the hundreds of illegally parked cars that create daily chaos on the streets, we hope the supervisors will see, as did Planning Commissioners Parke and Cooney, that they have the ability and duty to deny the project.

We request that the supervisors direct preparation of an environmental impact report to assess both the direct and cumulative effect of all the proposed projects in Isla Vista. Isla Vista needs a comprehensive plan addressing public safety, infrastructure needs, and parking solutions before the community has been taken beyond repair.

The supervisors’ constituents are relying on them. We are not against development; we just need smart development.