Applications have been submitted to the City of Santa Barbara for the construction of two massive housing projects that will significantly and permanently cause negative impacts to all of us. The city is accepting public comments for one of them until September 30. I urge all readers to send a letter opposing these projects.
The city’s Planning Department is accepting comments on the 1609 Grand Avenue project — a building of massive bulk and height — on the lower Riviera. The second project is proposed to be built directly behind the S.B. Mission at 505 East Los Olivos Street: two eight-story buildings with a total of 270 units and 445 parking spaces.
Both projects will cause the evacuation corridors to be overburdened with vehicles, creating major public safety hazards. This directly affects all residents in high fire zones who must evacuate onto Foothill Road. Both projects will cause a significant negative public safety impact regarding wildfire evacuation.
The 1609 Grand Avenue project is located along a narrow road near a fault line in a CalFire-identified “very high fire hazard severity zone.”
The 505 East Los Olivos project, which is still being reviewed by city Planning, will significantly increase vehicle density and congestion on the narrow evacuation routes, thereby impeding residents and firefighters. The main driveway of the proposed East Los Olivos project will create a massive traffic problem at the intersection of Los Olivos, Mission Canyon, and Alameda Padre Serra. This intersection is already a safety hazard.
The death of 85 people in the 2018 Paradise wildfire evacuation was almost entirely due to vehicular congestion on the narrow evacuation route. The evacuation routes for the areas that would be impacted by these two proposed projects are more constricted than the main Paradise evacuation route. Additional vehicle volume and density on high-fire zone evacuation routes caused by these two projects is inviting a similar calamity in Santa Barbara.
The top priority for the Santa Barbara City Council must be public safety. Our City Council members were elected to serve the people of Santa Barbara, not to capitulate to out of town real estate developers who have no interest in our community other than making a large profit. Santa Barbara residents rely on our City Council to uphold the public safety and environmental standards that define our city and prevent us from becoming an over-built, congested mini-Los Angeles. To approve either of these projects would be a calamitous and irreversible betrayal of the residents of our precious city.
Both projects are completely inappropriate for the neighborhoods for which they are proposed. The city is facing pressure from the State of California to build these projects. Without a strong and massive pushback from Santa Barbara residents, these projects will be approved and built!
The amount of “affordable housing” included in these two projects is the minimum needed for each project to qualify under the State of California “builder’s remedy” provision and therefore does not provide enough gain for the community compared to the amount of permanent severe damage inflicted on the community in the areas of ambiance, traffic, neighborhood character, and wildfire evacuation. The developers of these two proposed projects have no interest in our city other than to extract a large profit from projects which have massive community opposition.
These two projects do not conform to the city’s General Plan standards and policies and therefore must be denied.
SAGE-SB (Smart Action for Growth & Equity, Santa Barbara) is a community-based organization with objectives and purposes that include promoting safe and equitable housing and development, supporting affordable and workforce housing, and taking action to safeguard a sustainable, resilient and equitable community.
I urge you to view the SAGE-SB website at https://sagesb.org/. View the details of SAGE’s 9/15/25 presentation in the HOME tab. On the HOME page, click on “View September 15 Presentation” and scroll down to see the rendering of the enormity of the 1609 Grand Avenue project.
At the HOME page of the SAGE website, you can enter contact information to receive updates on this effort to defeat these two catastrophic projects. Time is running out to defeat these projects! Your help is urgently needed now!
A sample letter to send to the city appears on the HOME page. For the comment letters to be effective, the letters should not be identical copies of the same form letter. Therefore, please paraphrase, alter, and/or cut-and-paste sections of the sample letter.
Please urge the city to stand firm with the developers of these projects and require a robust review, evaluating:
• Fire and Emergency Access & Evacuation, particularly given the narrow roadways that serve the affected areas
• How the projects will impact evacuation times
• How the projects will directly impact the City and County Emergency Response Plans
The SAGE information directs you to send your letter to 1609Grand@SantaBarbaraCA.gov , where it will be received by the City of Santa Barbara Planning Division. For maximum effectiveness, please also send your letter to each of the members of City Council at Clerk@SantaBarbaraCA.gov.
