Isla Vista Rental Inspection Program Hits Halfway Point

Santa Barbara County’s Planning Department Reports Progress and Roadblocks, with Tenants Refusing Inspection

As of December 9, Planning Department inspectors contracted by the county had reviewed 144 units on 60 different properties in Isla Vista as part of the pilot rental inspection program. | Credit: County of Santa Barbara

This article was underwritten in part by the Mickey Flacks Journalism Fund for Social Justice, a proud, innovative supporter of local news. To make a contribution go to sbcan.org/journalism_fund.

The intended year-long Isla Vista rental inspection program has reached its halfway point. At last Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, the Santa Barbara County Planning Department gave an update on the program’s progress.

The program’s goal is to proactively inspect houses in Isla Vista to ensure they are up to health and safety code. Normally, tenants have to file a formal complaint if they believe there is a violation.

Santa Barbara County’s Board of Supervisors approved the pilot program in May. At that time, 2nd District Supervisor Laura Capps, who represents Isla Vista as well as much of Santa Barbara and Goleta, and brought the program before the board, said at that meeting that there was a unique and dangerous trifecta in Isla Vista that contributes to substandard living conditions. That trifecta was: eroding bluffs on a cliff lined with houses, extremely high rents, and young and low-income tenants.

Through the summer, the county’s Planning Department worked to register properties with the program. Owners for about 40 percent of Isla Vista’s properties registered voluntarily, a department report to the supervisors said. Now, the report says, about 63 percent of properties in Isla Vista are registered.

Inspections began on Del Playa Drive in August. Inspectors require a tenant’s consent to enter the property.

As of December 9, Planning Department inspectors contracted by the county had reviewed 144 units on 60 different properties. Of those 60 properties, 23 required “corrective action,” including things such as a lack of smoke detectors, minor repairs to flooring and kitchen appliances, plumbing problems, and pest infestations.

The county’s report on the program also said the Planning Department has issued one violation of building safety code. The report says that last month’s rainstorm caused one building on the oceanside of Del Playa Drive’s roof to leak, and water to come into several units. The county received a complaint (the house’s tenants had not originally consented to the inspection program) and, upon inspection, found “a number of problems.” County Planning Director Lisa Plowman said the county is now working with the landowner to address the problems.

Third District Supervisor Joan Hartmann said she was interested in whether the county had regulations on how many people could occupy one bedroom. She said that by adding more students to a room, landlords could increase the overall profit from that room.

Jeff Wilson, the Planning Department’s assistant director, said one of the program’s purposes is to “get at the overcrowding issue.” He said that currently a 1997 housing code is in effect, which has design guidelines that say a bedroom must be 70 square feet and can have up to two occupants. A new updated housing code will take effect next year; one person will be allowed in a 70-foot bedroom. Adding another person would require an additional 50 square feet, Wilson said.

“I don’t believe to this date we’ve been able to identify particular occupancy that exceeds those standards,” said Planning Director Plowman. “We don’t get access to every unit, and my guess is the units we don’t get access to are the ones that have that more significant overcrowding.”

So far, many tenants have refused consent for the inspections: 208 units in 110 properties, as reported by the county. At Tuesday’s meeting, Supervisor Capps said that some landlords had required students to refuse the inspection as part of their lease.

The program has also seen legal pushback, with a group of landlords forming the Isla Vista Rental Property Owners’ Association and suing the county over it. The association argued that the program was overly intrusive to tenants, forced landlords to violate their tenants’ rights, and would likely result in many students losing their housing in an already overcrowded area. On December 19, Judge Donna Geck of the Superior Court of Santa Barbara will address the association’s motion for a preliminary injunction against the program.

At Tuesday’s supervisor meeting, planning staff said it had finished all houses it had access to on Del Playa Drive and was now moving on to homes on a nearby street, Sabado Tarde. All told, the program has spent approximately $80,000 of the $600,000 allocated toward it as part of the money UC Santa Barbara paid to settle a lawsuit alleging they had not provided the housing they had promised in their 2010 Long Range Development plan. At the meeting, Plowman said the county is starting to see more cooperation between landowners and those implementing the program.